The Smell of Destiny
by DarthAmmonite
Summary: NWN2 In which Sand, quite by accident, succeeds where the Traveling Ranger & Paladin Show has failed, and destiny is revealed to smell like iron and gingerbread. Sarcasm! Drama! Romance! More sarcasm!
1. Iron & Gingerbread

Author's Note: Well, everybody said they wanted a Sand romance, so I had to take my best shot, poor though it might be.

There will probably be more, but it's tricky to write, because I apparently have only a finite store of sarcasm, and trying to write dialog for our favorite moon elf drains it very quickly.

_Chapter One – In which our hero interrupts a virtuoso performance, forges a great many documents, drinks a bit too much, and gets laid for the first time in two hundred years. _

They were at it again.

Sand was passing through the main hall of the Keep, carrying a beaker of spring water for his latest experiment, and heard the echoes.

"I am telling you, _paladin_, she's more than capable of taking care of herself, so I am not going to—"

"I am not suggesting otherwise—" the voice of Casavir cut in, sounding rather less measured and more harried than usual, "I am merely stating—"

Sand sighed.

_Lovely. The Traveling Ranger & Paladin Show puts on another performance._

To be fair, they probably didn't realize that the peculiar acoustics of Crossroad Keep were broadcasting their argument to half the castle. If they had, they would undoubtedly have chosen a more private location for their spat.

_The center of the courtyard at high noon, for example. _Sand massaged his temples as the echoes flew.

"And even if she is spending too much time in the basement with Jerro and that blue freak, if she can't handle it, then it's her problem!"

"Surely even you can see that no good can come of consorting with demons!"

Sand shook his head. The guards in the main hall were looking distinctly uncomfortable, and Sergeant Kana's angular face had gone from cool to downright icy.

"Never a Shadow Reaver around when you want one…" he muttered.

_Just keep your head down and go back to the library and if you close the doors and stuff cotton in your ears, you can probably drown out the second act._

Not that there was much point in drowning it out. The Ranger & Paladin Show put on at least three performances a week. Sand could pretty much recite the entire thing from memory, including such perennial hits as "I'm Not Whining, I'm A Paladin," "Repression, Self-Deception, and Doubt," and Sand's personal favorite, "I Don't Care What Your Detect Evil Says, I'm Just Misunderstood."

_If either of those idiots spent one-tenth the energy speaking to the dear girl that they expend sniping at one other…ah, well. _

He made it halfway across the flagstoned floor, and Kana's fist closed over his collar.

Sand winced.

Kana scared him. She was always calm, but she had that zealot's fire in the back of her eyes, a hard smell like brimstone and coriander—and owing to his own rather peculiar position in the hierarchy of Neverwinter, Sand was never entirely sure if she could give him orders or not.

Apparently she had no such concerns, because she said "Stop. Them. Now." and punctuated each word with a little shake.

"What, me?"

"Do. It." Another shake. Sand grimaced. "They are making a laughingstock of the Captain, and I will not have it."

"Why _me?"_

Kana narrowed her eyes.

"Oh, very well." Sand straightened his robes. _It's not as if I don't get all the dirty jobs anyway. Sand, go research two hundred years of legal precedent for tomorrow morning. Sand, the basement of the keep is flooding, go make sure Mephasm's circle is waterproof. Gee, Sand, don't you think antagonizing this giant red dragon is a wonderful idea…?_

He followed the echoes down the hall, around several corners, and finally located the source.

Sand could smell them before he even came around the corner. Bishop's scent always reminded him of a wounded boar he'd encountered once in his youth, a savage creature with spears broken off in its hide, too hurt to live and too vicious to die. He'd spent half the night up a tree waiting for it to go away, and swore never to leave a city again if he could help it. Wood elves could keep the forest, Sand was more comfortable with walls.

The paladin was a cleaner, less complicated scent by contrast, a metallic holiness, faintly tinged with the acrid odor of despair.

The pair of them together in the unventilated corridor made his sinuses itch.

He came around the corner, trying not to sneeze.

Bishop was slouching against a wall, looking surly, which was normal, and Casavir was standing rigidly at attention, holding forth on the Knight-Captain's moral integrity, which was also normal. He broke off at the elf's approach.

"Sand?" A cautious quarter-bow. "Is there something you need?"

_An intermission to buy popcorn and use the privy would be nice…_

"You do realize," said the elf acidly, "that if you gentlemen would move down the hall about ten feet, the _other_ half of the Keep will be able to hear you, too. As it is, they'll have to rely on the gossip, and just _think_ how disappointed they'll be."

Casavir had the decency to flush. Bishop didn't.

"Everything I've said is the truth," said the ranger, pushing away from the wall. "I don't care who hears it."

"Mmm, quite. Doubtless the good captain will share your opinion."

"You're cruising for a knife between the ribs, wizard."

"Yes, yes, you're a dangerous man, we're all in terror." Sand made a shooing gesture with one hand. "Go and be dangerous somewhere _else_, won't you?"

Bishop snorted, turned on his heel, and stalked away.

Casavir stared at the floor. Sand had an urge to kick him, but the man was wearing plate, and the elf's boots weren't up to it.

He folded his arms instead. It was difficult to scold someone who was eight inches taller than you and twice as broad in the shoulders, but Sand managed. "I don't expect civilized behavior from our dear ranger, but a paladin really ought to know better. If you're going to air your emotional laundry, at least do it _quietly."_

The other man sighed. "You are correct. I should not allow him to goad me." He bowed his head. "Please make my apologies to the captain."

"Me? Why is it always…oh, never _mind._" Sand rolled his eyes. "I'm going. If you find that you've brooded yourself into another ulcer, stop by the library. I've got a potion for that."

Casavir bowed and left with almost indecent haste for a paladin.

Sand sighed.

p 

p 

He knocked on the door of the Captain's quarters a few minutes later. Sand would ordinarily have resented carrying messages for the paladin, but Kana was going to make him report it to the Captain _anyway_, so he might as well kill two birds with one spell and save a trip.

There was no answer. He knocked harder.

"If it's a Shadow Reaver, tell it to come back tomorrow," came through the door.

Sand pushed the door open. "It's an army of red dragons, ridden by githyanki. Carrying undead on their backs."

Serafin Crowther, the hero of Neverwinter, Shard-Bearer, terror of Luskan, ally of Ironfist, etc etc ad nauseum, looked up at him from behind ramparts of paperwork.

"What are the undead carrying?"

"Mmm…explosives, I think."

"Tell them to come back next week."

Sand closed the door behind him and dropped into a free chair. Serafin vanished behind stacks of paper.

Her usual scent of leather and destiny—destiny, for some odd reason, was a not-unpleasant combination of iron and gingerbread, like someone baking cookies in a foundry—had been largely defeated by the smell of paper, ink and peppery frustration. Sand pinched the bridge of his nose to keep from sneezing.

"Sorry. It's the dust…"

It wasn't the dust, but Sand had mostly given up trying to explain the woes of having a truly superior sense of smell. His eye was caught instead by a bottle of wine on the desk. He read the label and winced.

"My dear girl, you _cannot_ waste a good merlot on paperwork. It is very nearly criminal."

"Sorry." Paper rustled. "They refuse to send up the bad stuff. And I'm not quite sure what wine goes with paperwork, come to that."

"An inferior white, actually." He set the bottle down. "The dryness of the wine matches the dryness of the parchment, allowing one to wallow thoroughly in the misery of the experience."

There was a chuckle from behind the ramparts. "I'll keep that in mind."

Sand picked up a stack of papers and read a few columns. "Requisition forms, approvals, pay vouchers—blessed Mystra, don't you have a quartermaster yet?"

One grey eye appeared briefly between two papery battlements. "Kana's supposed to be looking for one, but she can't find one that meets her standards."

"Of course not." Sand tossed the papers back on the desk, causing a minor avalanche. "All quartermasters are thieves. Tell her to hire one anyway."

_"You_ tell her." The eye got a hunted look. "Whenever I get in the same room, she throws reports at me."

"Quite." He got tired of trying to speak from behind the wall of paper and stood up.

She looked up at him wearily, a lean, spare woman with lines around her eyes that hadn't been there six months ago. She was not beautiful. Even Sand, who would have followed her to the outermost hells—complaining every step of the way, mind you—would have admitted that.

It was probably just as well. The last six months would have crushed beauty flat anyway. The captain had elegant bones and a sense of humor and a smell that didn't make him sneeze. Sand approved of these things.

At the moment, however, she looked rather more haggard than usual, and there was a mute appeal in her eyes.

He sighed and picked up another stack of papers. "You're not actually _reading_ these, I trust?"

Serafin looked worried. "I thought I was supposed to."

"No, foolish girl. Your Keep generates paperwork. You, as Captain, delegate as much as possible and sign the rest. You do not actually _read_ it."

She shoved a stack at him, a sudden mad light in her eyes. "Here, I'm delegating."

He folded his arms. "I think not."

Serafin put her face in her hands and moaned briefly. "I am starting to have nightmares about drowning in paper. Is that a bad sign?"

Sand sighed and pulled a quill from his robes. "Oh, very well. I'll help you sign, at least." _I am far too generous for my own good…_

The captain propped her chin in her hand and watched him forge her name neatly on the bottom of a form. "It worries me how easily you do that."

"How do you think the alchemy lab got so well stocked, hmmm?" He continued signing, authorizing a shipment of mule fodder, the miner's back pay, and what appeared to be a permit to allow Deekin to sell live scorpions on a stick. _No, I definitely shouldn't read these things…_

"Does _Nevalle_ know you can do that?" Serafin picked up her own stack and began signing.

He smiled down at the page. "Rather like the current whereabouts of Ammon Jerro, I seem to keep forgetting to mention it."

"Heh."

"That's enough," she said finally, an hour or so later. Between the two of them, they had finished off half of the paperwork and two-thirds of the bottle of wine. "I can see my desk again—if I get too efficient, Kana will start thinking I'm good at this." Serafin slumped back in her chair and ran a hand through her hair. "Thanks, Sand. You're a life saver. As usual."

He shrugged, faintly embarrassed. She always thanked him. Sand was not used to people thanking him for anything and actually meaning it, which was probably the reason he kept doing absurdly dangerous things in the Captain's service.

_Of such small things are loyalties made…_

Which, unfortunately, reminded him of the paladin, and why he was here. He sighed.

"I fear, however, I did not come merely to rescue you from paperwork."

"Of course not." She leaned back and stretched her boots out toward the fire. "You didn't kill Qara, did you? If so, I hope you disintegrated the body, otherwise I'm going to have to at least pretend to yell about it."

"Nothing so pleasant, I fear. The Traveling Ranger & Paladin Show was performing for most of the Keep again. One of them sends his apologies, but I'll let you guess which one."

"Oh, gods…" She put her head in her hands. "What was it this time? Am I wearing my armor too short again?"

"The paladin doesn't approve of Jerro's demons, and the ranger doesn't approve of the paladin not approving. Also, of course, they're both idiots."

She groaned.

"Kana is ready to have them both horsewhipped, but she doesn't think she has the authority." He steepled his fingers and peered at her over the top. "Mind you, I'm not sure how long that will stop her."

"What am I going to _do?" _The scent of frustration thickened noticeably, a mad chef adding cayenne to the gingerbread.

"Well, as I keep telling you, if you'd just pick one, I could fireball the other and frame Qara for it…"

_One of these days she's going to take you up on that offer, and _then_ what will you do?_

_Do it, obviously. It's not like it's the first body our merry band has left in our wake, and anything I do to Qara is preemptive self-defense anyway._

Serafin shook her head wearily. "Don't tempt me."

"Mmm. Madness, I'm sure, but have you tried talking to them?"

"Repeatedly." She heaved a sigh that seemed to come from her toes. "Bishop chooses not to believe me, and Casavir runs if he sees me coming."

"Ah, yes. Doubtless he fears that your presence will cause him to be overwhelmed with unpaladinly lust, forcing him to, oh, give you a firm handshake in public or something equally risqué."

That wrung a tired snicker out of her, but she sobered quickly. "I don't know. They don't listen. Maybe the horsewhipping would get through…"

"With Bishop perhaps. I believe Casavir belongs to a flagellant order already."

Serafin snorted. She reached out blindly, found her wineglass, and drained it. "Bloody hell, Sand. A war with ancient evil, interdimensional metal bits embedded in my sternum, Luskan breathing down my neck, and the one problem I can't handle…" She made a vague gesture with her free hand, presumably in the direction of the ranger and paladin.

"Well, at least it's nice to be wanted," said Sand dryly, studying the ceiling.

He waited for something—another snort, possibly—and when it didn't come, dropped his eyes to the Captain in alarm.

"They don't want _me,_" she said drearily. Her eyes were suspiciously bright, and she blinked a few too many times as she spoke. "They're just after the damn hero of Neverwinter. Casavir wants a saint he can worship from afar, and Bishop…I don't know, probably just wants to get laid before he sells me to the highest bidder."

This squared exactly with Sand's opinion, but hearing her say it—particularly in that raw, tired voice—was painful. He set his wineglass down. "My dear girl…"

She looked up at him, started to say something, and a tear got loose and fell. "Bloody hell," she rasped, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Sorry."

Sand generally felt about emotional displays the way he felt about muggings—presumably they went on somewhere, but he preferred to avoid them whenever possible and considered them a dreadful imposition.

Still…

She apparently felt the same way, because she leaned back in her chair, grimacing, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes to try and stem the tide.

He'd once seen her go toe-to-toe with a Shadow Reaver—a creature that she knew, she _knew_ was invincible, and she'd stood in front of it, sword in hand, and let it hammer on her, all to buy time for the warlock to read off its true name. Blood had formed a mask over half her face, but her set grin of concentration had never once wavered.

It wasn't right that she be reduced to this, particularly not by those two idiots.

It was…

Well, it was more than an elf could take, that was all.

_What am I doing? I'm not—good lord, man, run for the door, not—_

Without quite knowing how it had happened, Sand found that he was kneeling next to her chair and somehow he had an arm around her shoulders—how had that happened?—and she was sniffling into his collar.

_This won't end well. What am I _doing?

Sand prided himself on his wit, but there was really only one thing you could say under the circumstances. He said it anyway.

"Er…there, there…?"

She didn't cry, exactly. If she'd started sobbing, he would probably have broken and fled, despite his best intentions. There were limits. But she only took a few ragged breaths, leaning against him, and fell silent.

He patted her back helplessly, because, like saying "There, there," it was just something you did.

Eventually she straightened up again. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she had a faint, sardonic smile.

"Thanks, Sand. You can't have enjoyed that."

"Not particularly, no."

She smelled like iron and gingerbread and wine. Sand caught her face between his palms, holding her as gingerly as a beaker of acid. _What am I doing? Have I lost my mind?_

She tried to take a deep breath, but it caught halfway through, and she sat very still for a moment. Sand winced.

"Dear girl, please. I cannot abide weeping. I will go and disintegrate them _both,_ right now, if only you'll stop."

She chuckled hoarsely. "Then I really would have to yell at you, or what would Kana think?"

"Kana will probably hold them down for me." He brushed his thumbs over her cheekbones, wiping away the remnants of tears.

"Heh."

It occurred to Sand, looking at her from about six inches away, that he could probably kiss her right now and get away with it.

_Are you out of your mind? _The little voice of sanity in the back of his head was outraged._ You can't do that! She's the hero of bloody Neverwinter, and you're a disgraced hedge-wizard from the Hosttower. Nevalle'd have your ears on his belt, and she's a human and—_

She kissed him.

_--you're hundreds of years older than she is, and if you do, she'll be polite about it, but she won't be interested and then it'll be awkward and she'll never…be…comfortable…around…_

Her lips were very warm, and tasted like—well, like a fairly good merlot, actually, the sort you shouldn't drink with paperwork.

_Err._

_Ah._

_Hmm. _

_Well, never mind, then._

When the kiss came to its natural conclusion a moment later, Sand sat back on his heels and said "Well. _That_ was unexpected."

Serafin turned a shade of scarlet he'd last seen on a dragon's scales. He still had one hand on her cheek, and could actually feel the heat pulsing under her skin. Mildly fascinated, he watched the blush spread to the rounded tips of her ears.

_My word,_ _that looks almost painful…_

"Oh _god_, Sand, I'm so sorry." She caught at his wrist, biting her lower lip. "I'm—I didn't mean to—I mean, that is, I _did_ mean to, but I'm sure you're—probably not—er—interested—"

"Dear girl…"

Now_ can I kiss her? _he asked his sanity.

_It's _still_ a bad idea, but do whatever you want, I'm _sure, it said testily.

So he did.

Her response was quite passionate. Possibly a little too passionate—he'd been crouching on his heels next to her chair, and when she leaned into him, he went right over backwards and hit the ground.

"Oh, good lord." She leaned over the arm of the chair. "Are you okay?"

"The paladin," said Sand from the floor, "has _no_ idea what he's missing."

She snickered. "Yeah, but he wouldn't have fallen over."

He scoffed, sitting up. "I assure you, dear girl, there are things for which one wants brawn, and things for which one wants brains, and—mmph!"

And Sand, who'd been kicked down so far that he could barely remember what up had been like, found himself with a woman in his arms and discovered that he had nothing sarcastic to say about that at all.

A few minutes later, when he had to do _something_—or risk doing something he would undoubtedly regret later—he disentangled himself, reached a hand up to the desk, and located the bottle of wine and one of the glasses.

"A poor accompaniment to paperwork," he said, pouring, "but not bad for this sort of thing."

Serafin chuckled, sitting up. Her hair was mussed, and she ran a hand through it, which didn't help at all. "So you really didn't know, huh?"

"I assure you, I had not the least idea in the world." He lifted the wineglass in a wordless toast.

"Oh, thank goodness. I was afraid I was terribly obvious and you were just pretending not to notice to be kind."

"Kindness is not something I'm often accused of." He handed her the glass.

"Feh." She took a swallow of wine herself, then ran a fingertip around the rim. "It was the trial, you know. I was just so…at sea…over the whole thing. I mean, fighting, I at least understand, but a whole city out to get me…" She started to gesture with the wineglass, and Sand plucked it from her fingers before it spilled. "How do you fight something like that? I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide."

"Not an unreasonable response, given the circumstances," he allowed. _Basically what I did, after all, even if the hole was Neverwinter._

"Yeah. But then they sent you along—and you actually seemed to know what you were doing—"

Sand shook his head in mild dismay. She grinned. "Well, you faked it well, anyway. And whenever I was about to get overwhelmed, I'd turn to you, and you'd know what to do next. You were so methodical, and so—I don't know, _sane_—that I started thinking maybe there _was_ a way to take on a whole city."

"Sanity is in short enough supply in our merry band, I'll certainly give you that," he muttered, finishing off the wine.

"Well, and then you accused Torio of dressing like a prostitute, which didn't hurt." She grinned at him.

"My finest hour." He smirked a bit at the memory. "Still, if I'd known…"

_If I'd known, though, what would I have done differently?_

He'd spent the first hour after the trial in a fine frenzy, doing the only thing he could think of, mixing up potions until he'd nearly set his eyebrows on fire, for a woman he'd thought of as a friend. If she'd been anything more…

What would he have done? Slaved over potions until he'd burned the shop down around his ears?

Offered to fight in her stead?

_Hardly. What am I, a paladin?_

Whipped up some invisibility potions and tried to convince her to flee the city with him?

_More plausible._

Snuck into the Temple of Tyr in the small hours of the night and made love to her in front of the altar?

_Hmm, now we're talking…_

Possibly some of what he was thinking crossed his face, because she blushed again—not quite so painfully scarlet as before, but still rather brilliantly. Sand stroked her cheek, bemused.

_You cannot _seriously_ be thinking of taking the hero of Neverwinter to bed. Nevalle wouldn't stop at your ears, and Duncan would nail your head on the wall of that decrepit bar as a trophy._

She leaned into his hand. "Ah. I…uh…should probably warn you…West Harbor, you know…kinda small…I don't, ah, have that much experience with this sort of thing…"

_So what if I _am_ thinking of it? We're all going to die in the next month or so anyway, and probably not in bed. I don't see the King of Shadows sparing my life because I've been sleeping virtuously alone._

"Dear girl," he said, with rather more warmth than he was used to hearing in his own voice, "I am over four hundred years old. I assure you, I have experience enough for both of us." He folded his arms around her.

A moment later, when an unfortunate thought had struck him, he fought free long enough to say "Precisely how much experience are we talking about?"

"Eh." She shrugged. "Bevil and a haystack."

"_Bevil?" _ Sand dropped his forehead to her shoulder and summoned up a brief image of the sergeant—expression of earnest bafflement, neck like a tree trunk, all the finesse of a wild boar in a dress shop. "Blessed Mystra. No wonder you have no fear of Shadow Reavers—how much worse could you possibly be mauled?"

"Hey, now…" She leaned her head back, laughing. "He meant well."

Sand lifted his head. "And?"

She opened her mouth, shut it again, and shrugged. "And…he meant well."

_Come now, Sand, you cannot possibly let the dear girl go to her death with the great romantic experience of her life being _Bevil. _And the haystack, of course._

_Oh, rationalize a little harder, Sand, you've nearly convinced yourself…_

Serafin was watching him, looking wry and amused and ever so slightly worried. The iron-and-gingerbread smell had gotten spicier, heavy on the nutmeg and cinnamon. Sand had a fair idea what that meant.

_This is a dreadfully bad idea, and you know it. You've already had to flee one city. What are you going to do this time—change your name and move to Waterdeep?_

He stood up and brushed himself off. She leaned back on her hands and cocked her head up at him.

If he left now, she'd probably never mention it again. She'd bear up, the way she bore up under everything else. What she lacked in grace, she made up for in raw stubbornness. She wouldn't hold it against him, and she had to know that unlike the Ranger & Paladin Show, Sand would never say a word.

He went to the door.

Serafin sighed, so quietly that a human would not have heard it. She probably didn't realize he could hear it.

Sand put his hand out to the door.

And locked it.

She laughed out loud. Sand preferred her snicker, but he was willing to admit that the laugh wasn't bad either.

He came back to the fire, knelt, and slid one arm under her shoulders and one under her knees. A quickly muttered cantrip to negate half her mass—he was a wizard, after all, not some overmuscled paladin—and he scooped her up in his arms.

"Hey!" She caught at his neck. "I _felt_ that!"

"Yes, well…"

"I could have walked, you know."

"There is such a thing as _style_, dear girl," he said, carrying her to the bed.

"Oh, well, anything for style, I suppose…"

_I'm insane. I always suspected I was—standing up to that red dragon should have been the tip off—but here's the proof. I have finally lost my mind. Too many decades of inhaling mercury fumes. Today this seems like a good idea. Tomorrow I'll be hunting Wendersnaven with the gnome. _

Truth be told, he hadn't expected madness to seem so pleasant.

He set her down, caught both her hands, and shook his head ruefully.

"I must be insane to even be thinking this," he told her.

"Well, we _are_ all going to die…" she said, with a crooked grin. Which, Sand thought, was probably proof that it was meant to be.

"In that case, dear girl—on behalf of men and elves everywhere—_please_ allow me to make up to you for poor Bevil."

p 

p 

p 

Sometime in the deep watches of the night, Sand woke.

Beside him, breathing evenly, the hero of Neverwinter slept the sleep of the just and the righteous and the carnally exhausted.

He'd catnapped for a few hours himself, but the longer he lived, the less sleep he seemed to need, and the less deeply he slept when he did. He'd been sleeping alone for a long time, and every time she twitched in her sleep, he came half-awake, startled by the motion.

Still, it was pleasant to lie there. She radiated heat like a furnace, the way the younger races always did, and in a keep that was icy even in high summer, Sand had occasionally thought he'd never get warm again. He had been content for several hours to do nothing but curl his body around hers and soak that heat into his bones.

However, there were…other concerns. Things that needed to be thought through, before he slept again.

_What a peculiar and dangerous opportunity this is._

Sand sat up in the bed, tucking the sheet modestly around his waist, and propped his chin on one hand.

Serafin mumbled something in her sleep that sounded like "hnggly-blrrrmmmgh?" and rolled over on her side.

If someone had been scrying the scene—and Sand assumed that the Hosttower was probably trying at any given moment—they might have been struck by the way he looked at her. It was not the way a man looked at a woman he loved. It wasn't even lust. It was something rather colder and more calculating, and it turned the elf's already pale blue eyes to the color of a winter frost.

Then again, if it was the Hosttower doing the scrying, they might have known Sand, and then perhaps it wouldn't have surprised them at all.

He reached out a hand and idly stroked the hair away from her neck. She was sleeping with her head back, the column of her throat exposed.

Sand knew for a fact that the bounty on that neck would make him wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and Sand's avarice did _not_ think small.

Not that he would do anything like that.

_Well…probably not. _

_Although…if I were to do so…_

Killing her outright was madness, of course, no matter how close his hands were to her neck. In a contest of raw physical strength, she'd break him in half.

There _was_ a knife in his robes at this very moment, which were draped over the back of her chair. The edge was very sharp, for that last desperate moment when all spells failed, and Sand had become rather good with it over the years.

Severed heads were rather more portable than whole corpses, anyway.

She made a small, sleepy sound. Sand discovered that he was tracing the path of her carotid artery under the skin with his fingertips, and took his hand away.

_I couldn't do it inside the Keep, of course. The mess would be unbelievable. I'd need to get her outside and alone, which shouldn't be difficult now. Humans will believe any foolish thing about elves…a few carefully chosen words about moonlight, someplace secluded outside the walls, and I'd be headed for Luskan on a swift horse with bloody saddlebags…_

_And…no._

_It would be murder, after all. _The lines etched on his face deepened, and he folded his hands in his lap._ Permissible under Luskan law, perhaps, but…no. _Sand had done enough incidental killing in the last few months to secure his place in any number of hells, but this was something else again._ The Hosttower may have broken me, but I have not sunk quite so low on their behalf. Yet. _

They'd pay a great deal more for her alive, of course. The living could stand trial publicly.

_She might even survive the experience._

_Anything's possible._

Sand wasn't sure that he could dominate her mind under normal circumstances—Serafin was as stubborn as a balked mule, which was likely was the reason she was still alive. But if he woke her, and spoke the spell while she was still groggy and half asleep—or if he provided certain…mm…distractions—yes, he might well be able to get her in thrall, and it was always easier to keep someone under then it was to put them down in the first place. Then down to the stables for _two_ swift horses, and the Hosttower would be so ecstatic to have the hero of Neverwinter delivered alive and intact to their doorstep, they'd likely give him his own suite and a monochromatic wardrobe to go with it.

_Of course, the primary colors are already taken. With my luck I'd wind up as Sand the Mauve or Sand the Ecru or something regrettable like that…_

It probably wasn't worth dooming the free world, violating his principles, and putting a price on his head the size of a dragon's hoard just to be Sand the Ecru.

_Oh, be realistic, Sand. You wouldn't last a fortnight in the Hosttower anyway. Such power bases are not stable, as Garius learned to his misfortune. And none of the reasons you left have changed, nor are they within your power to change._

Black Garius would doubtless also pay handsomely, but that didn't bear thinking about.

_I would make a very poor Shadow Reaver._

_And all this assumes that her dear friends do not immediately give chase—as you would do yourself, if the ranger tried any such foolishness._

The ranger was the one who concerned him—the ranger and Ammon Jerro. Sand would have put himself against any of the others in wit or craft, but he had no illusions about the warlock. The man had stared into the abyss until the abyss came to heel like a whipped dog. He'd destroy Sand as easily as breathing. And it would be Bishop—Bishop, who could very nearly track the flight of a butterfly over naked rock—who would lead Ammon Jerro to him.

_He'd do it, too. Whether out of jealousy or because he was planning to sell her to the highest bidder himself, probably even he doesn't know. But he'd still do it._

It did not take a mind as keen as Sand's to see how that would play out.

_I'd be two or three days down the road, half-exhausted from holding the dear girl's mind under, and hezrou demons would come pouring out of the ground. I'd be lucky to get off a scream, never mind a spell. Oh, no, _definitely_ not a good idea…_

_Well, then._

She shifted a bit in her sleep, half rolling over. Sand reached out and pulled the sheet up over her shoulder.

Better to stay. Certainly more ethical, for what that was worth. He had watched her do a number of impossible things already. Defeating an ancient evil from a dead empire was just the sort of thing she might pull off, and anyone who stood with her—if they lived—would hardly need the Hosttower afterwards.

He'd probably even manage to get out from under Nevalle's thumb, if he was lucky.

_So long as you are deciding this based on logic and reason, and not on some foolish sentiment or lust. _

He slipped back under the blankets and wrapped an arm around her, so that his hand lay in the hollow between her breasts. The jagged scar across her chest was a raised slickness under his fingers.

She sighed and one hand crept up to cover his.

_Naturally. Sentiment has nothing to do with it at all._

_Just so long as we're clear, then. _

Content that he was doing the only logical and reasonable thing, and that his judgment was still perfectly sound and in no way influenced by the heat of her body or the smell of gingerbread, Sand closed his eyes and drifted off for another fitful hour of sleep.


	2. Coffee & Reports

_Chapter Two: In which our heroine wakes up alone and reflects on the nature of dreams, elven hair, the sleeping habits of wizards, and the peculiar nature of clandestine reports._

The Captain of Crossroad Keep, hero of Neverwinter, Shard-Bearer, etc, etc, woke up to cooling sheets and an empty bed.

_Did I dream that? _

_Oh, gods, don't let me have dreamed that. _

_If that was a dream, I'm not going to be able to look at Sand for a week without blushing so hard I spontaneously combust._

Serafin sat up in bed, looking around frantically for some proof that last night had actually happened.

It wasn't immediately forthcoming. She'd wound up in the middle of the bed again, the bedding a tangle, so she couldn't tell if there had been a depression left by another body or not.

"C'mon…" she muttered, running her hands over the pillowcases. _One very long brown hair. Is that so much to ask, to prove I'm not cracking?_

There wasn't one. Of course not. Elves didn't shed. It was part of the package—pointed ears, good eyesight, perfect hair. Moon elf, wood elf, even the bloody drow, it was all the same. Never a tangle, never a split end, certainly never a hair left on someone's pillow to ease their sanity.

_No…_

_No, I can't have dreamed that. I don't think I've got the imagination for it. _

She'd had a couple of _those _dreams about Sand before—rather more so of late, in fact, the war kept dragging on and you could only have nightmares about your impending death for so long—but they tended to be vague and frustrating, and ran into other dreams in the usual fashion, so that one minute she was in a passionate embrace and the next she was wandering through her foster father's house, trying to find some indeterminate but important object, while zombies clawed their way up through the floor.

Leaving aside the absence of zombies, she would have put money it wasn't a dream. It had been too realistic, and had too many details her subconscious wouldn't have generated. How cool his skin was, for example—she'd always known that elves had a lower body temperature than humans, but she'd never translated that into how it might feel if you were holding one in your arms—or how he'd slipped into ragged Elvish there at the end.

_Wonder what it was he said? I suppose I could try and write it down phonetically and get Elanee to translate…no, it'd probably be something dirty, and she'd tell half the keep. Girl couldn't keep a secret if you stapled her lips shut. _

She could ask Daeghun, if she could find him. He'd tell her, no matter what it was, and never mention it to another soul.

_Oh lord, no. One of those talks was enough for a lifetime._

Give credit where it was due—her father might be as remote as a star, but he'd never shirked what he perceived as his duty. The talk they'd had about men and women when Serafin had been twelve still stood as one of the most agonizing single hours of her entire life.

_Plus, I still don't know _what_ sets him off. He'll send me off to fight lizardmen without batting an eyelash, but every now and then…_ Daeghun had always been cool to Bevil, but she was pretty sure that he hadn't gotten that icy until immediately after the haystack incident.

_Probably easier to just ask Sand._

_Assuming he's not regretting ever having set foot in my quarters last night, that is._

_Assuming he _did_ set foot in my quarters last night…_

Her eye fell on the chair, and she felt a sudden immense relief.

Her clothing was folded neatly on the seat.

_Oh, thank the gods._

Serafin was one of life's flingers of clothing over available surfaces. She had spent the first twenty-four years of her life looking vaguely crumpled, and then she'd gotten promoted to Captain and had servants and a laundry to take care of such things.

Either she had been beaten senseless, undressed by healers, and put to bed in a delirium—again—or her mind had been controlled by some particularly anal demonic entity—okay, she couldn't rule that out, but Ammon Jerro swore that Mephasm was completely contained in that circle—or Sand, one of life's folders of clothing into neat stacks, had been around last night when she got undressed.

_Oh, blessed gods. It really happened. _

…_oh, blessed _gods!_ It really _happened?

Serafin felt her cheeks heat up and pressed the edge of the sheet to her face to cool them.

_So, uh…yeah. It would appear you actually…ah…and now he's not…hmm._

She pulled the blankets around her shoulders. She hadn't expected breakfast in bed, but at least sticking around until dawn might have been nice.

_Oh, come on, don't work yourself into a fit, now. Have you ever known a wizard that wasn't a raging insomniac? Did you ever wake up before Sand, even _once,_ all those weeks on the road? _

She couldn't remember having done so. Every morning she'd stagger awake, generally because Bishop had kicked her in the ribs and said "You. Up. Now," and by the time she managed to focus her eyes, Sand would already be awake and brewing coffee.

Hell, she would have kept him around for the coffee, even if she hadn't needed a lawyer.

And he didn't ever try to make conversation before noon, which Serafin considered one of the absolute top virtues in a traveling companion. (Elanee, who was a morning person, had courted death more times than she knew.)

_Well, there you go then. He probably stayed long enough to be polite, then went out to go index scrolls or something. _

_I hope._

The door opened, and her valet came in without bothering to knock.

_Nobody ever knocks. They all know I sleep alone, so why bother? _

_Maybe he left so the servants wouldn't realize I _didn't_ sleep alone._

This thought set itself carefully aside for future consideration.

"Morning, Captain." The valet, a redoubtable matron who could defend the walls as well as half the guards, poked up the fire and straightened up the papers.

_Maybe I was so horrible he went to try and blot all memory of last night with a fireball to the forebrain._

_Okay, now you're just getting paranoid. Drink some damn coffee and quit thinking so much._

"Morning," she muttered.

"The blue surcoat or the grey today, Captain?"

"Blue. Coffee first."

"Of course." The woman cleared away last night's dishes. If she noticed the extra wineglass, she didn't say anything.

By the time the coffee arrived, Serafin had managed to stagger out of bed and pull on her clothes. The valet buckled her into her light armor, handed her the coffee, and took herself off with admirable efficiency.

The Captain signed a few more papers while she drank, fidgeted with her quill for a minute, then set it down.

_Bugger this. I better go talk to him. If he's regretting the whole thing, might as well get it over with._

The one thing she was sure of was that she had no regrets whatsoever. Sand had made up for a whole legion of Bevils, with a couple of haystacks thrown in.

_I just hope we're still friends._

_Oh, god, I'm even thinking in clichés…_

Really, though, she didn't know what she'd do without him. Sand was always like a…well, _rock _would be mixing her geological metaphors, but he was always reliably Sand, anyway. When you were toe to toe with a Shadow Reaver, and there were amorphous shadows clawing at your sword arm and the damn gith had fumbled the true name yet again and you couldn't feel the right side of your body because you'd just taken a hammer to the collarbone—well, whatever else might happen, Sand would be right there to say something really sarcastic about it. You learned to appreciate that after awhile.

When everyone was fighting, when Khelgar and Neeshka were ready to kill each other and Elanee was whining and Grobnar had composed yet another ode to foot fungus, she'd gotten used to looking across the fray and meeting Sand's eyes, a brief solidarity with the only other adult in the room.

It had been a helluva night, but it wasn't worth losing that.

_I hope that we're still…whatever we were._

_I hope that…oh, dear gods, I _really_ hope he doesn't put this in his next report to Nevalle._

She knew that Sand was a spy, of course. In the first place it was obvious, and even if she'd doubted, about a week after she'd taken over Crossroad Keep, he'd sat down across from her, in the makeshift tent she was using as a command post, steepled his fingers, and said "You do _know_ I'm a spy for Neverwinter, I trust?"

"I kind of suspected as much, yes. After all…" she glanced around the construction zone, "…you're still here."

"Mmm, quite." He carefully handed a sheet of parchment across the desk. "Read that."

She scanned down the page, which was nothing more or less than a report to Sir Nevalle, in Sand's spidery handwriting, detailing her activities of the last week, seditious and otherwise, the repairs to the keep, and a note that both Bishop and Neeshka were being kept mostly out of trouble and should be allowed to stay free of prison for the time being.

It was meticulous, if brief, and somewhat embarrassing. He did say that she displayed admirable competence, which was nice to hear. Getting a compliment out of Sand normally required a crowbar and a team of trained praise-mining dwarves.

"Any particular reason you're admitting this now?" she asked, handing the report back to him.

He tilted his head in that sardonic manner he had. "Would you believe a change of heart?"

"No."

"Nor should you." Sand grinned. "I am telling you primarily because I have been assigned to you for the duration, and I wish to avoid any unpleasant moments of shocked revelation."

"Oh, thank goodness. I hate those."

"Likewise, I'm sure." He tapped the tabletop. "You may, if you wish, dismiss me from your service, but I do not recommend it. Nevalle will only find someone else, doubtless of less competence, or arrange to buy off one of your current companions."

He didn't mention that she'd be out a wizard and someone who knew how to make decent coffee over an open fire, but they both knew it.

Serafin found herself shaking her head. "Well, better the devil you know."

The devil she knew inclined his head at this tribute.

She folded her arms. "Do I get to read all these reports?"

"Do you really wish to?"

Serafin considered the pounding that her ego was likely to take if she did, and the already mounting piles of paper that seemed to require her approval. "Not particularly, no. I trust your judgment. If you think it's important, warn me about it."

He nodded. "I shall." He paused for a moment, then met her eyes squarely. Blue bored briefly into grey.

"If there is ever anything you wish me not to relay, you need only ask, of course."

Serafin, who was not entirely a fool, had held his gaze and said, not bothering to hide the trace of disbelief, "And you'll really leave it out?"

He smiled. She got an odd, fleeting impression that he was proud of her for asking.

"I may. Or I may have even more to report. That, dear girl, is a risk you will simply have to take."

She nodded. "Certainly the most I can ask for. Thank you."

And then he'd left.

The only thing she'd ever asked him not to mention was Ammon Jerro, and he'd been as good as his word.

_He wouldn't really tell Nevalle that he'd…_

_Surely not._

She drummed her fingers on her desk, feeling a grin fight its way onto her face.

_That'd be a helluva report. I'd pay to watch Nevalle read it._

She could practically see it. "Week 27, summary -- Curtain wall of castle nearly complete. Sporadic bandit activity, largely eradicated by patrols. Attempts to reconstruct golem proceed, despite severe doubts about gnome's competence. Nailed Knight-Captain. Whereabouts of Tome of Itzaar still unknown. Request quartermaster be assigned to keep, third request."

_Now don't be ridiculous…_

She swirled the dregs of her coffee around the bottom of the cup. _No?_

_Of course not. This is Sand we're talking about._

_He'd at_ least_ include a line about his having displayed admirable competence. _

She snickered to herself.

_Enough fretting. Go talk to him. It's probably fine._

_And if it isn't, take the sword, just in case._

Serafin set down her empty coffee cup, slung her sword belt around her waist, and went to go beard the wizard in his own den.


	3. Politics & Poetry

_Chapter Three: In which our hero contemplates politics and expediency, is compared to a goat, and learns some unfortunate facts about that time with the dragon._

The great library of Crossroad Keep smelled like must and books and magic, which, so far as Sand was concerned, was the single best scent in the world.

He tapped a beaker to settle the contents, heard a faint cough behind him, and set the glassware down on the workbench.

He turned.

Serafin was standing in the doorway of the library, armed and armored, looking every inch the Knight-Captain, except for the uncertainty in her eyes.

_Ah, yes. These little morning meetings are always awkward…_

Well, that, at least, Sand could fix. He held out a hand.

She took two steps across the floor and he caught her shoulders long enough to kiss her forehead, then let her go. "Good morning," he said pleasantly.

"Same to you," she said. He could smell relief on her, a lemony smell quickly overpowered by the assorted eye-watering odors of alchemy.

_I suppose I could have woken her and told her I was leaving. Well, but if she'd thought it through, she would have realized…hmm. _

_She hasn't thought this through, has she?_

_I suppose I shall have to enlighten her._

She leaned against the workbench and folded her arms. "And here I was just thinking you weren't a morning person…"

"No, but I am at least allowed to be civilized." He located a small bottle from the cluttered surface of the workbench and handed it to her. "Mmm. Drink this."

"Sure. What is it?" She pulled the stopper and lifted it to her lips.

_Such trust. _He watched her drink, bemused. _It's a good thing I _don't_ plan to sell her to Luskan. Drugging her would be almost too easy._

_I'd tell Nevalle to hire her a food-taster, but I'd probably get stuck with the job._

He shrugged. "There's a very old elven tradition about giving gifts the next morning. Flowers are the usual, but as you are a very practical woman—and I am too old to go wandering through the fields at the crack of dawn like a lovestruck druid—I thought you might prefer a contraceptive."

She choked a bit, but got it down, gazing up at the ceiling. "And they say romance is dead."

They shared a smirk.

_One must admit, she has a most admirable smirk. _

"Well, probably good that one of us thought of it, anyway," she said. "Can't say I've ever seen maternity plate mail."

"Thought of it? Dear girl, I operated a shop in the Docks district. You're drinking one of my bestsellers."

She drank the rest down hastily. "Bleagh. Tastes like bad peppermint."

"It was that or raw fish. For some unaccountable reason, the customers preferred the peppermint."

"Can't imagine why." She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. "How long does it last?"

"One full moon."

She wiggled her eyebrows at him. "And am I going to need it?"

Sand smiled lazily. "That, of course, is up to you." One arm crept around her waist. "But I certainly hope so."

She leaned into him, hip to hip. "Oh, good. When you were gone this morning, I was a bit worried…"

"Ah."

_As I suspected._

He glanced around. The library was empty, as usual at this hour. Qara slept until noon, like all degenerates, and if Aldanon did wander through and overhear something, no one would be able to decipher what he was saying anyway.

"Dear girl, I would be delighted—even flattered—to share a bed with you regularly, but you _must _understand that this must be kept secret."

Serafin frowned. "What? Must? Why?"

"Because whatever else you may be, you are the hero of Neverwinter. And thanks to Torio, the entire world knows that I am from Luskan."

She looked blank.

_I suppose that tiny backwater village did not teach any advanced courses in political intrigue…_

He tried to explain. "A champion of Neverwinter can hardly be seen consorting with one formerly of the Hosttower. You have immense symbolic value to Nasher, and he will not be pleased to find you—pardon the pun—sleeping with the enemy."

There was a long, long moment of silence.

_Oh, look at that. If I could bottle the look in her eyes, I could kill livestock with it at thirty paces…_

"You can't tell me that's anybody's business but mine," she said flatly.

He just looked at her.

"Oh, for pity's sake…" She folded her arms and glared at the ceiling. "And I suppose _Bishop_ would have been more acceptable?"

"Actually, yes." Sand lifted a finger as she sputtered. "Moreso than the paladin, even, who is a known oathbreaker and deserter. Bishop may be a reprehensible human being, but he is one without a politically inconvenient past."

"Who cares where you're from? You don't _work_ for Luskan."

"Are you quite certain of that?" He cocked his head.

To her credit, Serafin's eyes didn't so much as flicker, although the smell of iron was a bit stronger than usual. "Yes." And then, rather slowly, "Or you're playing so deep a game that I've got absolutely no hope of deciphering it, which amounts to the same thing so far as I'm concerned."

He smiled, obscurely pleased. _Dear girl_."Well, fortunately you're right. However, I don't think you quite appreciate what it is like to be from Luskan in Neverwinter. It would cause a scandal, and Nasher does not appreciate scandal."

That balked-mule look was back. Sand could have sharpened a sword on the set of her jaw. "Nasher can go bugger Nevalle for all I care, assuming he isn't already."

Sand was seized with a suspicious coughing fit.

"I can't believe this. I've been a bloody model soldier." She pushed away from the bench and stalked back and forth across the library. "I've given Neverwinter everything else, but this—no. I'll bloody well sleep with men, women, or—or _goats _if I choose, damnit!"

"It is desperately flattering to find myself in such company, I assure you," said Sand, honorary goat.

She paced another round while he watched. "What are they going to do to me, anyway? Nasher needs me to run this hulking keep for him and kill the King of Shadows and all that nonsense."

"Ah." Sand tilted his head, looking up from under slanted eyebrows. "Well. There you have it. They will do nothing…to you."

The sudden flat wrath in her eyes was oddly gratifying. Sand couldn't remember the last time someone had cared about him enough to commit murder.

_Of course, she'd probably do the same for any of our companions, but it's still nice to see._

"They _wouldn't."_

"On the contrary." Sand folded his hands neatly inside his sleeves. "I am a mildly useful spy and an excellent lawyer, but easily replaced should I outlive my usefulness. Do not think that because Nevalle is an honorable man that he is not capable of ruthlessness on Neverwinter's behalf."

"They'd have you _killed?"_

"Oh, nothing so dire, I expect. Kill me, no…Kidnap me? Oh, yes." He clasped his hands behind him and joined her in a round of pacing. "I expect I'd be held under house arrest at some obscure backwater outpost, until the war is over and symbolism becomes rather less important."

He considered. _Actually, that's not without its appeal. I'd be out of danger, unless… _

"Unless Nasher is truly concerned about a goodwill gesture towards Luskan," he said aloud, "in which case certain parties might be…hmm…alerted as to my whereabouts. Since that trial, I am somewhat more in Luskan's eye than I like, and my head might go some small way towards mending fences."

"You really think he'd do that?"

"To preserve Neverwinter? In a heartbeat."

She exhaled slowly. "It seems to me, then…you would be safer if...we were only friends."

He raised an eyebrow. "Indeed, I would be."

The scent of iron rolling off her was suddenly very strong.

Sand held up a hand, as much to forestall that terrible metallic scent of resolve as to halt anything she might actually say.

"However, it may be hopelessly naïve of me, but I somehow believe it is _my _decision to make. It is my neck in the noose, after all."

She halted in the middle of the library. Sand stopped as well, because the alternative was to run into her, and faced her instead.

"Of course," she said. She met his eyes. Hers were brittle grey and there was an odd bleakness to them that reminded him uncomfortably of…something…

_The paladin. She's looking like the paladin, all duty and despair. Be careful, Sand. That is _not_ a good look to see in a woman's eyes._

He shrugged. "Such secrets cannot be kept—not entirely—but if we are discreet, I see no cause for concern. Scandal is what Nevalle fears, after all. If you do not mind midnight visits, I do not believe it is any worse a danger than those you drag me into on a daily basis anyway."

The iron smell faded, but Serafin still looked unconvinced. "If you're sure—"

"Dear girl, I faced a dragon for you. Nasher can hardly be worse."

One corner of her mouth crooked up reluctantly. "Sand, you _hated_ fighting the dragon. You were scared to death. You told me so. Several times. Loudly."

"Well, yes…"

"And once it was dead, you screamed at me in Elvish for five solid minutes."

"Did I, really?" He didn't remember that. Actually, all he remembered was frantically rattling off spells until his fingertips went numb, and his unutterable relief afterwards to find that he had not actually soiled his robes.

"Sure, ask anybody." The smile grew. "We couldn't understand a word you were

saying, but the hand gestures were pretty clear."

"I imagine they were…"

"Then you fainted."

"Oh, surely not!"

"Seriously. Your eyes rolled back and you went out like a candle. Casavir had to carry you back down the mountain. He'll swear to it. It took two laying on of hands and a bottle of dwarf brandy to get you back on your feet."

"You know, I have always wondered how I got off that mountain. I just assumed I had blotted it from my memory…" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Dear me."

"Speaking of words I didn't understand…" She narrowed her eyes, still with that odd smile. "What exactly _were_ you saying in Elvish last night?"

He frowned. "I said something? I can't remember."

"Hang on, I wrote it down…" She fumbled a scrap of paper out of a pocket and began reading it off. Her accent was atrocious, but the words were recognizable. She got most of a sentence out, and he put his fingers over her lips to stop the rest.

"I…ahem…would not go uttering that in public, if I were you."

_Sweet Mystra, how much wine did I _have _last night?_

Apparently enough to cause him to recite Elvish erotic poetry in the throes of passion.

_How embarrassing. _

"Now I'm really curious…"

"I'm certain you are." He plucked the scrap of paper out of her fingers and dropped it into a convenient beaker of acid.

She raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't ask Elanee then, I take it?"

"I could have sworn I just delivered a lecture about discretion to someone a moment ago…"

"Oh, c'mon…"

"Do you speak no Elvish at all, dear girl?"

"Ah…I know "Excuse me, does anyone here speak Common?" and "Which way to the privies?"

He sighed. "In the unlikely event we live past the end of summer, remind me to teach you some. However, I cannot even begin to translate what you heard and keep the…ah…idiom intact, as it were."

That was the problem with Elvish. There were too many layers of meaning. You could translate something absolutely filthy and it would sound like an ode to fields of lavender flowers on a fine spring day, and then the humans always looked at you very strangely when you tried to explain the symbolism.

"Oh, well, fine…"

Her docility was suspicious. Sand gave her a wary look.

_Not even she can master a language in a week…I don't think…_

She shoved her hands in her pockets. "Well, I should probably go report in before Kana comes looking for me." She exhaleed. "Discretion. Okay. I can handle that."

She looked at him, thought very obviously about kissing him, and equally obviously decided not to.

Sand suppressed a sigh.

His sanity nagged at him. _Far be it from me to give you advice when I think this is a horribly bad idea anyway, but_ _having met passion with cold counsel, you really ought to say _something.

_Thank you, yes, I know._

She turned to go.

"Dear girl," he said, reaching out and catching her chin in his hand. "I am not…gah. No. Listen to me. I have been destroyed twice by politics, and I do not wish to have it happen a third time, either to me or to someone that I—"

He stopped there, because he had absolutely no idea how to finish the sentence.

_Am rather fond of?_ _Quite like using as a human shield during combat? Hope to continue bedding until my inevitable and rapidly approaching death? _

Well, it was probably one of those three, anyway. No sense worrying about precisely which one.

Apparently it was enough, because Serafin nodded. "I do understand. I'm not particularly happy about it, but…well…no worse than anything else we've had to do for this stupid war."

_Beautiful women are a dime a dozen. Give me one who understand political expediency any day of the week…_

He glanced around, saw that there was still no one around, and folded her into a quick embrace. The smell of gingerbread briefly overwhelmed the scent of books and magic.

"Sand?" she said, by his ear.

"Hmmm?"

"You're not gonna get all weird and try to protect me now, are you?"

He scoffed. "Dear girl, I'm a _wizard._ It's the job of you people with swords and excessive upper body strength to protect _me."_

This was apparently exactly the right thing to say, because she stepped back, grinned at him, swept him a bow much too deep for a hero to a hedge-wizard, and strolled out of the library, whistling.

He watched her go, shaking his head.

_Protect her? Not likely. _

_But I may have to see about fireballing the ranger in the back, just in case._


	4. Elf & Other Elf

_Chapter Four: In which our hero has an unexpected encounter, is compared to a viper, and is briefly terrified out of his wits._

Sand poked his head out the door, glanced both ways down the hall, and saw no one.

_Safe. Excellent._

It was two hours before dawn. The halls were empty. No one would see him leaving.

He shot a glance over his shoulder, saw Serafin completely engulfed in blankets except for one arm hanging over the edge of the bed, and closed the door carefully behind him.

It was getting harder and harder to leave her in the morning. Not, Sand would have hastened to protest, because of any emotional attachment—certainly he was fond of her, but there was no need to lose one's head—but the keep at night was as cold as a basilisk's nethers, and he was starting to get used to having a warm human around. Political expediency was all well and good, but it didn't make seeking an empty and chilly bed any more appealing.

Still, it was hard to be too upset. Sure, they were all still certainly doomed, war was coming, Shadow Reavers dropping from the rafters and all, but he'd just spent most of the night in the arms of a woman of moderate personal charm and excellent body temperature, after all. It was amazing how that tended to improve one's outlook on life.

He could still faintly smell gingerbread.

He turned a corner of the hallway, grinning to himself.

An arrowhead snugged itself up under his right ear. Sand's grin fled.

_Mother Mystra, it's Bishop. He figured it out, and now he's going to kill me out of jealousy, and then probably he'll flee the keep and betray the captain and lose us the war and all manner of unpleasantness—but _most_ importantly, he's going to kill _me.

_I can't possibly get a spell off before he shoots._

Sand licked his lips. He could cast with an arrow in him—he'd done it before—but probably not when it was embedded in his skull. Granted, he'd never tried, but it didn't seem likely.

_Why am I not invisible? Why am I skulking around the Keep and not invisible? What was I thinking?_

"Surely, my dear Bishop, you wouldn't kill someone who hates Luskan as much as you do, would you?"

Bishop said nothing. This was surprising, because Sand would have sworn that the ranger loved to hear himself talk almost as much as the paladin did.

_Figured I'd get at least one speech about how he doesn't need anyone but he's killing me on general principle. Actually, I'd sort of been counting on it…_

It was also odd, but he didn't _smell _Bishop, either. That crazy wounded-animal smell was generally impossible to hide.

Instead Sand smelled…trees.

_Am I being mugged by a dryad?_

The arrow moved. Footsteps padded around the wizard in a circle, and moonlight through the window illuminated a narrow, high-cheekboned face not unlike Sand's own.

The wizard blinked.

"_Daeghun?"_

The wood elf's eyes didn't so much as flicker.

Sand had to admit, he hadn't seen that one coming.

He'd have put good odds on a stern lecture from Casavir, and he was pretty well prepared for Bishop to try and kill him, and if Duncan ever got wind of this, Sand really did have plans to change his name and move to Waterdeep, but the captain's absentee foster father…no, that was a surprise.

It explained the smell, though. Daeghun smelled like a forest—a whole forest, all pine and leaf litter and running water. You couldn't pick a single emotion out of it. It was more than a little creepy.

The arrow aimed at him never wavered.

"You will explain why you are leaving my foster daughter's room at this hour," said Daeghun in that eerily calm voice that always made Sand wonder where the bodies were buried.

"Ah," said Sand. _Shall we lie? Yes, I think we shall._ "There is no great mystery to it. We were simply discussing possible locations of the Tome of Itz—"

Daeghun dropped the bow a few inches, put an arrow through the hem of Sand's robe, nailing it to the floor, and slapped another arrow on the string, all in one smooth motion that was nearly too fast for the eye to follow.

_This may be a problem._

"I suggest that you do not lie to me, wizard," said the ranger, still as calm as if they were discussing the weather. "The next arrow will be somewhat higher."

"Ah," said Sand again.

_Think, idiot, think! He never comes inside the keep if he can help it. Someone must have tipped him off._

"I'm not certain what you have been told, my good ranger, but I can assure you--"

"No one has told me anything," said Daeghun. "I do not need to be told. I can smell the truth." His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air.

_Mystra's teeth…_

It occurred to Sand that he had finally encountered someone with a sense of smell to rival his own, and that there was absolutely no point in lying. He could smell the rain on Daeghun's shoulders and the grass on the other man's boots. There was no question that the ranger could smell his daughter's scent on Sand's skin, and probably had a damn good idea of what they'd been doing, too.

_There is _never_ a Shadow Reaver around when you need one. If I live through this, I'm going to tell Nevalle to keep one on staff. _

Moonlight streamed through the window. The shadow of a guard on the battlements moved across it, too distant to do Sand any good.

"Well," the mage said. "This is certainly awkward, isn't it?"

"Awkward? No." Sand had seen more emotion in a shark's eyes than in Daeghun's. "You will explain yourself, or I will kill you. I see no awkwardness."

The hairs on the back of Sand's neck were starting to stand up. There was a form fathers observed for beating the living hells out of the man who was taking advantage of their precious baby girl—even elven fathers did it, it was one of those things that crossed all species boundaries—and Daeghun was not following it.

_Duncan said that his brother was a trifle odd, but he didn't mention that he was completely mad. One more thing I'll have to thank him for…_

The arrow still hadn't moved. If there was any strain involved in holding a bowstring taut for that long, the man gave no sign at all.

Sand would almost rather have dealt with Bishop. He would infinitely rather have dealt with Casavir. _Bishop likes to hear himself talk, and you can tie Casavir up in emotional knots with five words and a hard look. But this man..._

He tried to think of what to say next, discarded _Please don't kill me_ as too humiliating, and settled on "I'm not certain what you wish me to explain."

"What are your intentions?"

"Well…at the moment, I'm rather hoping to live until morning."

The silence that rolled off the other man was absolutely chilling. Sand swallowed.

_Keep him talking. If you keep him talking, he probably won't shoot you. _

_I hope._

_"_FranklyI'm surprised you even care. The dear girl has people trying to kill her on a regular basis, which would seem like a more constructive use of paternal anxie—eep!"

The arrow was practically under his chin. Sand discovered he was standing on tip-toe. His mouth was bone dry, but he was afraid to swallow.

"Physical harm does not concern me."

"It's definitely on my mind at the moment," Sand said in a bare whisper.

Daeghun took a single step back. Insomuch as any emotion could be found on his face, he looked contemptuous. "Love destroyed me once. I would spare my daughter that fate."

_Oh, sweet Mystra. Watch yourself, Sand, this man is definitely a couple of reagents short of a potion. _

The moon elf dropped to his heels and swallowed a few times. "Would you have preferred someone else? That psychotic colleague of yours, I suppose?"

"He is of no concern," said Daeghun remotely. "I raised my daughter to know a mad dog when she sees one."

What did you say to a statement like that?_ "Excellent parenting! I salute you." No… let's not talk ourselves into an early grave…_

"The paladin, at least, appears to be an honorable man, and he is of her own kind. You, however…" Daeghun's eyes narrowed slightly, the first emotion that Sand had seen him display. "Duncan spoke of you. He called you a viper."

"And after all I've done for him. I'll be sure to thank him." _That worthless barkeep is going to get me killed. I always _knew_ it would happen. _

_I'm going to come back as a banshee and _haunt_ that wretched bar until he drops. _

"I do not place a great deal of faith in Duncan's opinions," said Daeghun.

"Then it would appear we have at least one thing in common."

_Besides your daughter, anyway. No, don't say that out loud._

_Blessed Mystra, how long can that man hold a bow at full draw? My arms are getting sore just watching him._

"I have not yet heard a reason why I should not shoot you."

"I suppose "she's old enough to make her own decisions" isn't going to work here, is it?" asked Sand glumly.

"No. She is human. You are ten times her age. I hold you responsible."

_Seventeen times, actually. _He'd done the math the other day while waiting for a potion to come to a boil._ I probably shouldn't mention that, either. _

The bow creaked as Daeghun drew it back another inch. Sand was starting to get that unpleasant hot tightness in his chest that he remembered from fighting the dragon.

_Well, this one's humiliating, but I'm fresh out of better ideas._

"I suspect your daughter will be very annoyed with you if you shoot me."

If he'd been hoping to give the other man pause, he was sorely disappointed.

"She had been angry with me for many years. Another reason more or less is of no concern."

The moonlight was flat and white over the planes of the wood elf's face. It occurred to Sand that if someone were to come along the hall now, they'd see two dark-haired male elves of roughly equivalent age facing each other and wonder if they'd run into a duel of doppelgangers.

Sudden inspiration crystallized around that image.

"Hmm, quite." Sand held up a hand, moving very slowly. "Has it perhaps occurred to you that the dear girl is so desperate for your approval that she was—oh, let us say _predisposed_ to seek affection from the first dark-haired male elf ten times her age that she happened to encounter?"

_Hey, that was pretty good._

_Yes, I thought so._

_Think it's true?_

_Probably. Who cares? _

The other elf finally moved. His shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly, and he slackened the bowstring by a few inches.

Sand breathed again.

_Sometimes I astound even myself._

"Perhaps," said Daeghun finally. He was as calm as ever, but there was a hairline crack in the timbre of his voice. "It is possible that you are right. I have never been warm. I did my best. Perhaps it was not enough."

_Oh, thank you, Mystra, I'm going to live. Paternal guilt, there's nothing quite like it._

Relief flooded him, and loosened his tongue.

"Well, it's never too late to mend fences, I suppose—"

_Don't babble._

"—nobody's dead and you can still talk to her and undoubtedly—"

_Sand, you're babbling._

"—love will find a way and all that—"

_Oh, excellent, _that's_ going to get us killed. Good job._

"Perhaps." Daeghun's hands moved restlessly on the bowstring. "I no longer understand love as I once did." He lifted the bow, sighted down the arrow.

_Told you so._

"Tell me, viper, do you love my daughter?"

_And now we're dead. He's going to smell a lie._

_Err… _Something that wasn't Sand's sanity put on a brief appearance. _Are we actually sure it'd be a lie?_

There was a moment of icy silence from all parts of Sand's occasionally fragmented brain.

_Yeah…forget I said anything. I don't know what I was thinking there._

_I'll be back in my hole if anyone needs me._

Daeghun raised the bow, cocked his head. It was not the best angle to judge from, but Sand was fairly sure that if the wood elf released the string, the arrow would go straight through his left eye, punch through the back of the eyesocket, and continue on into his brain.

_Oh good, something to look forward to. _

"Well?" said Daeghun colorlessly.

"I have put my life in danger past all good sense for her," the mage hedged.

"So have many others. I have not caught them coming out of my daughter's room in the middle of the night, however."

_Was that a joke? I think that was a joke._

_Sadly, a humorless madman raised by wild elves can still crack a joke better than the paladin._

"Um."

_We're going to die now. Not because of Shadow Reavers or Luskan or anything else, but because _you_ just couldn't resist a woman who smelled like gingerbread._

The bow creaked back another few inches.

Sand said, all in one breath, "SortofmaybenotreallyIdon'tknowpleasedon'tshootme," and closed his eyes.

_Ah, yes. The finest lawyer in Neverwinter displays the verbal skills for which he is justly famed. _

His only consolation was that there was probably no way Torio would ever learn what his last words had been.

A couple of seconds slid by, and Sand opened his eyes because the suspense was going to kill him if the arrow didn't.

Daeghun lowered the bow.

"Astonishing," said the ranger, in a voice that conveyed neither astonishment nor anything else. "That was the truth. You don't know."

"Well…" Sand rubbed the back of his neck. "It hasn't really come up."

Daeghun looked at him for a long, silent moment. Moonlight cast blue-edged shadows against the wall.

Then the ranger took the arrow off the string, put it back in his quiver and slung the bow over his shoulder.

_That's it?_

Without so much as a nod, the wood elf turned on his heel and vanished down the corridor, leaving only a faint smell of rain and leaf behind him.

_He's gone?_

Sand slumped against the wall of the corridor and put a hand over his chest. His heart was racing like a panicked rat.

_I am too old for this. I am much too old for this. _

_Dealing with psychotic fathers is for men under three hundred._

He didn't even know why what he'd said had saved him.

_Don't try to understand madness. That man is frightening. _

Sand managed to push away from the wall and took a step toward his room. The empty bed he'd been viewing with loathing suddenly seemed very safe and inviting.

Something halted him. He nearly had heart failure again before he realized that there was still an arrow through the hem of his robes.

He reached down and wrenched it out. The fletching was stiff under his fingers.

He took one more step, still clutching the arrow, had another thought, and muttered three arcane words. There was a kind of visual sneeze behind his eyes, and moonlight was streaming through him to splash against the wall.

_I'm never going anywhere visibly again. _

The hell of it was that he couldn't tell Serafin. He didn't dare. How did you explain that—"Hey, your father stopped me and held me at arrowpoint and demanded to know if I loved you and I said I had no idea so he let me live?"

Serafin had been generally content to leave all questions of emotional involvement unspoken, but Sand was pretty sure _that_ would go over like a lead wyvern.

Plus, even if she'd understood—and she might have at that—he just couldn't. She was running a keep and fighting a war and living on borrowed time. There was never a good time for familial drama, but some times were a lot worse than others.

_Discretion. It's all about discretion._

Sand made his way down the hall to his tiny room, pushed the door open, and fell onto the bed. He was shivering violently, from delayed adrenaline as much as the cold. He pulled the blanket over him, which didn't help much at all.

He was still fully clothed, still invisible, and still clutching the arrow. Fixing any of these things seemed like far too much effort.

_Well…at least Daeghun's not inclined to gossip._

His fingers worried at the fletching, pulling the quills apart into ragged wedges.

_And what's one more madman trying to kill me, anyway? He'll have to get in line._

He eventually managed to get undressed, visible, and shove the arrow under the bed, where no one was likely to find it, but it was a long time before he got warm and an even longer time before he slept.


	5. Cats & Orcs

_Chapter Five: In which our heroine contemplates the nature of cats, dogs, wizards and relationships, a number of orcs are dispatched, and proof of sorts is finally offered about the Wendersnaven._

It was a spectacular day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the wind teased the stalks of late summer grass, and Sand was complaining.

"I cannot _believe_ you dragged me clear out to the back end of nowhere hunting Wendersnaven."

"Yeah, well…"

Serafin had, over the last few weeks, come to the conclusion that having a relationship with Sand was rather like owning a cat.

Men like Casavir were like dogs. They were loyal, they were steadfast, they would take any amount of abuse, and they watched your every move when you were in the room in a kind of worshipful silence.

This was fine, if you liked dogs and had a large enough yard.

Cats, on the other hand, were prickly, self-absorbed, narcissistic creatures whose first loyalty was to themselves alone. If someone broke into your house, a dog would defend you. The cat would hide under a chair and hiss. A cat had its own existence apart from you, and was only occasionally interested in what you might have to say. You worshipped the cat, and the cat accepted this as its due.

But every now and then, the cat would allow you to stroke it, and it would curl up against you and purr, and—perhaps proving that humans are an inherently masochistic species—you would be delighted at this sign of feline regard.

Sand was definitely a cat.

He looked particularly feline today—the hunched, irritated look a cat who is displeased with the way life is going and is about five minutes from hissing and showing his claws. She would not have been entirely surprised if he'd started grooming his fur.

"Wendersnaven. The end of the world as we know it is upon us, and instead of being safely behind twenty foot stone walls, we're gallivanting around the north woods on the word of two gnomish madmen."

"I told you to bring a book."

Give credit where it was due, not one of their companions suspected anything. Hell, some days Serafin even wondered.

He still disagreed with her as often as ever. He still responded to direct orders he didn't approve of with "Anything for my glorious leader, I'm _sure._" He still treated her like some kind of large, semi-intelligent guinea pig for experimental potions—

"Here, drink this."

"Bleagggghh!"

"Hmm, I was afraid of that. Back to the drawing board…oh, and if you start to feel a burning sensation in your extremities, I suggest you seek the cleric at once."

In short, he was still Sand.

_Thank the gods for that._

Off in the distance, Grobnar was cavorting through the field like a deranged puppy, with the Construct trudging solemnly along behind him.

Serafin sat on a large rock and propped her chin on her hand. Sand was seated in a pool of robes, not quite at her feet.

"Who's running the keep in our absence, anyway?"

"Casavir." She plucked a stalk of grass and chewed on the end.

"Oh, that'll end well."

True to his word, Sand did not once try to protect her. On at least two separate occasions, he actually hauled her _into_ the path of enemy fire to save himself. He displayed absolutely no guilt for it afterwards either, unless handing her a leather strap to bite on while the paladin dug arrows out of her shoulder counted as an apology.

She tolerated these things, because like people with mages and people with cats everywhere, you just accepted being a human shield as part of the package.

"Eh, Casavir's military or close to it. People respect him. Kana'll keep him from doing anything too egregious, anyway."

"I suppose the odds of the defense of the Keep hinging on his ability to tell a joke are minimal."

"We can only hope." She twirled the grass stem, tossed it away.

Serafin wished occasionally that there was someone—preferably female—she could talk to about the nature of her relationship, such as it was, with Sand. Unfortunately, Neeshka and Elanee were worse than useless in that regard, Kana would have been dreadfully uncomfortable, and that was one thing that wasn't going to get across the species boundary to the gith.

If Shandra had lived…well, a lot of things would be different, and not just that.

Oddly enough, she'd actually thought of talking to Ammon Jerro, who, despite being an evil bastard was also the only person in their little band to ever marry and raise a family. You could have cut the irony with a knife.

She didn't, because she wasn't an idiot, but she _had_ thought of it.

As if the thought had called him, Ammon Jerro stalked up, looking murderous and bored, which was a bit more alarming than merely murderous. "I'm going to go summon something."

"Have fun."

"Write if you find work."

He stalked away again.

Barely visible, Grobnar had begun frolicking around the Construct, an ambitious dancer with a particularly spiky maypole.

"You don't really expect to find the Wendersnaven here."

"Oh, hell no." She leaned back on her hands. "But our best intelligence has the undead weeks away, we can't do anything useful until Bishop gets back from scouting for that crystal dragon thingy—"

"Ah. Yes. About that. We're absolutely sure that this dragon is dead?"

"As a doornail, according to Jerro."

"But not _un_dead."

"So he says."

"I_ really_ don't want to fight an undead dragon, dear girl."

"Yes, I am fully aware of your opinion of dragons." She rolled her eyes. "There are things living under rocks on other planes of _existence_ who are aware of your opinion of dragons."

"And yet you still want to go meeting this one..."

"I have to reforge this silver swordamajigger. Apparently the dragon knows all about them."

"It has generally not been my experience that the draconic race is all that concerned with minor points of arcane metallurgy."

"If you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it."

"Unfortunately, any ideas I might have would involve research, which would involve being somewhere _other_ than the middle of the woods on a mad hunt for Wendersnaven."

"Just think of it as a vacation. Frankly, I could use one." She lifted her chin. "And look how happy Grobnar is."

"Hmmmph." Sand folded his arms. "I don't know how I'm going to write this up for Nevalle."

"Tell him you think I'm an idiot."

"I had planned to."

Yes, definitely a cat.

But on the other hand, her packs were always full of healing potions, and the good kind, too, not the weak little things that could just about fix a papercut. She didn't ask for them, they were just always there.

And at least once a week, she went to bed with her desk covered in mounds of paperwork, and woke to find most of it neatly signed and filed. So far as Serafin was concerned, a single piece of paper off her desk was worth any number of roses.

Sand pulled his knees up and draped his arms over them, eyeing the peaceful countryside as if he expected it to erupt with dragons at any moment.

_If you had a tailtip, m'boy, it'd be twitching._

"What's bothering you, anyway? You've been jumpier than a frog on a griddle since we left the keep."

"Spare me the folksy metaphors, I beg of you." He pulled his robes tighter around himself, despite the warmth of the day. "No, it's…all this nature. I don't trust it."

"Some elf you are. What's wrong with nature?"

"It's filthy and full of rangers."

"Awww." Serafin put her chin in her hand and failed to hide a grin. "Did Bishop take your lunch money again? Do I have to have a word with his mother?"

"Oh, aren't _we_ amusing…"

"Seriously, is Bishop doing something? If it's blackmail, just tell me how much you need."

"No, it's not Bishop, it's…no. I'm just being paranoid." Sand shook himself, moved over a few inches, and leaned back against her legs. "Which is not irrational of me, since everyone really _is_ out to get us."

"Well, yes." Serafin looked down at the head resting against her knees. He tilted his face back and looked at her upside down.

Sure, he was prickly and feline, but there were…other benefits.

Grobnar was nearly out of sight. Unable to resist her own mental image, she reached down and stroked Sand behind the ears.

He looked briefly surprised, and then his eyes lidded over and he made a noise that wasn't quite a purr, but wasn't far from it.

_Heh heh heh._

"Mmmmm. It occurs to me…" said Sand slowly, "that Grobnar will not miss us and Ammon Jerro will likely be occupied for some time…"

"It does seem that way. But would it be discreet?"

He stretched and smiled, a cat who has a canary under one paw and is contemplating dinner. "By an interesting coincidence, I seem to have memorized mass invisibility this morning."

"Well, you can hardly get more discreet than _that." _Serafin slid her hands down to his shoulders and waited.

He lifted a hand, began lazily uttering arcane words—and Grobnar screamed.

They both groaned.

Sand closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. "Perhaps he found the Wendersnaven."

Serafin shaded her eyes with her hand. "Looks like orcs, actually."

"Well, he does say the Wendersnaven can look like anything…"

They got up. Serafin drew her sword, and Sand brushed dust from his robes.

"Hope you've got a fireball to go with that invisibility."

"Dear girl, the day I _don't_ have a fireball is the day that you may put me on my pyre."

She broke into a run. Sand caught his robes up in his hands and followed.

Grobnar, backed up against the Construct, was talking even faster than usual, like a particularly vocal hummingbird. Orcs circled him, watching the gnome with irritation and the Construct with concern.

"No, no," she could hear the gnome saying as they approached. "I quite like orcs. Some of my best friends are orcs. Did you know that the word "orc" derives from a corruption of an elvish word meaning "prisoner"? The linguistic theory is that orcs were originally…"

The orc in front of Serafin would just have to die without knowing the linguistic theory. She swung her sword and felt the shock of impact travel all the way up her arm. He crumpled. Unfortunately, her sword was still stuck in him like a cleaver in a side of beef, and she had to put her foot on the orc's back and haul to get it loose.

The orc next to him spun on her, lifted his club, and then crumbled to dust with an expression of surprise.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

The Construct was killing orcs with ponderous mechanical intensity. Sand turned one side of the ring into a charred ruin. Grobnar was…blowing into his hands?

"My dear gnome," said Sand, ducking as orc parts flew overhead, "while I am almost certain to regret asking—what precisely are you _doing?_"

"It's a gift of the Wendersnaven! An invisible instrument!"

Serafin had lived long enough to see Sand rendered speechless.

_Well, I can die content, now._

She hacked through another orc that seemed intent on taking her up on this.

_Not like Grobnar does anything useful in a fight anyway, I suppose…_

The last orc fell under the Construct's feet.

There was always a moment after every battle when everybody stood around and did a mental inventory—_am I dead? I don't think I'm dead_. _Do I have all my limbs? Yup, there they are. Okay, then. _

Her own internal inventory indicated that she wasn't injured, although she was getting a really desperate urge to drag Sand off into the bushes. _It's just biology. Your body thinks it almost died and now it wants to reproduce something fierce. If Sand wasn't here, the Construct would be lookin' good about now. Just breathe deeply and it'll pass off in a few minutes. _

"All right, then." Serafin ran a hand through sweaty hair. "Everybody okay? Good."

Sand was dusting himself off with feline fastidiousness. He straightened up and ran slender fingers through his hair, settling it back into place, and flicked his tongue over dry lips.

_Yeah, let's not look at Sand right now. That's _not_ helping._

She turned to Grobnar. "So…you found an invisible instrument?"

"Oh, yes!" He held empty air up for her approval.

"Ah. Yes. I…don't…see. Very nice."

"It must be a gift from the Wendersnaven! And just listen!"

He held nothingness to his lips and began a kind of strange, nasal whistling.

Serafin felt an expression of pained but unconditional approval plaster itself across her face, like a parent at a third-grade recital. "Very…unusual."

"What dulcet tones it has! What melodies!"

"What tri—" Sand started, and didn't get any farther because Serafin clapped a hand over his mouth.

"That was lovely, Grobnar," she said. Neither bards nor gnomes were noted for their mental stability, but Grobnar was in a class by himself. Still, she hadn't seen him this happy about anything since Shandra died. She shot Sand a quelling glance.

"Mmmfghh," he said behind her hand, and rolled his eyes.

The movement of his lips against her palm was not helping. _Down, girl. Gonna have to take one for the team here._

"I don't think the Wendersnaven are able to fight for us," said Grobnar, his eyes shining. "They're very peaceful creatures. But they must have wanted to help!"

"Mgggghghhh!"

"I'm sure you're right, Grobnar."

"I'm glad we came here. Now we have proof—sort of—that they must exist!"

"Mmmph! Mhg-mmghgh-FFGH!"

"Apparently so."

He gave her a beatific smile, of the sort generally reserved for saints, lunatics, and very small children. "Thank you, Captain. Maybe some day we'll actually get to meet a Wendersnaven."

"MMGGGFFHH!"

"I want to believe you, Grobnar."

The gnome cupped his hands around his mouth and called "Thank you, Wendersnaven! Wherever you are!"

Sand bit her.

"Ow!" She yanked her hand away and shook it, giving him a reproachful look.

"I _said,_" he said acidly, "_Orcs!" _And pointed.

Over a dozen orcs had melted out of the trees and were advancing across the field towards them. They had archers and unpleasant expressions.

"You really should've said something," she told Sand.

"If we live through this, I'm going to kill you."

"Back to back," she told the Construct. "Protect the spellcasters."

It obeyed. The orcs were spreading out to flank them. She and the golem faced opposite directions with Sand and Grobnar sandwiched between them.

"Where the hell is Ammon?" she muttered, unslinging her shield.

"Maybe he found work."

The orc archers drew back their bows. Wickedly barbed black arrows were fitted to the strings. Serafin raised her shield, tried to duck behind it, discovered Sand occupying most of the protected real estate, and sighed.

Hissing filled the air. Serafin shouldered Sand back and down, managed to get her shield between the two arrows coming at her head, and felt something thunk into her thigh.

_Didn't penetrate, but oh man, that's gonna leave a bruise…_

The archers prepared for another volley.

"This'd be a great time for a spell."

"Working on it…"

Lightning erupted from somewhere just past her left shoulder and danced from one archer to the next with a hot crackle. Serafin smelled ozone and burnt hair.

"That'll do nicely."

"So glad you approve."

The orcs charged forward in a line.

Things got very hot and very confused very quickly. Her head filled up with the ringing of metal and the grunts of orcs, mixed with Grobnar's high, nasal whistling.

She killed an orc, then two. The bodies formed a twitching rampart. Sand was crouching practically at her feet, casting furiously. The Construct was wearing an orc on its head like a hat. This did not seem to bother it.

Two orcs charged simultaneously, one aiming for her, one for Sand. She had a split second to choose who to throw her shield over, which was of course no choice at all, and felt an axe bite into her shoulderguard. Her collarbone creaked.

"Stop that," she told the orc, and lopped his arm off. He screamed, quite understandably.

Sand got off another spell and a sword appeared in mid-air and began dancing merrily around one of the orcs, making little slicing motions.

"That thing gives me the creeps."

"Yes, but somehow _Mordenkainen's Pet Gerbil_ is less impressive in combat."

Another orc fell. Grobnar had done something to one that made it sit down with a pleasantly vague expression, until the Construct put a fist through its head.

Serafin hacked into another orc, which promptly blew up around her sword.

"Hey! I was _killin'_ that!"

"That wasn't me."

Another enemy blew up. Bits of orc rained down like grisly confetti.

Ammon Jerro, grinning like a shark, rose up behind the line of orcs.

"And here comes the cavalry…"

Things were over after that, in very short order.

Serafin stood surrounded by dead orcs and performed mental inventory again. _Still alive. Still got all my limbs. Shoulder hurts like hell. _

_Still horny. Damnit._

"Everybody okay?"

Everybody was.

"Okay." She slung her shield over her shoulder and winced. Sand silently handed her a healing potion. "Thanks." It tasted like ripe olives, a taste she'd gotten heartily sick of over the last few months, but the pain receded.

"Right, then."

Grobnar was already stripping the bodies with the ruthless efficiency that was always so disturbing in such a cheerful little person. He looked up.

"I think we've overstayed our welcome here. We'll…ah…leave the Wendersnaven in peace, shall we? Ammon, take Grobnar and the Construct back and break camp, I want to be ready to leave in half an hour. Sand and I'll do a quick mop-up and make sure we got the whole patrol—last thing we need is an orc horde breathing down our necks."

Ammon Jerro gave her a brief nod and turned away. Grobnar scurried after him, with the Construct clanking in their wake.

She waited until they were nearly out of sight and sheathed her sword.

"You know…" Sand sounded more than a little amused. "I'm fairly certain we did indeed get all the orcs."

"Yeah, well…You still have that invisibility spell ready?"

He chuckled in her ear. "Happens to you after a battle too, hmmm?"

"Every damn time. Shut up and cast."

"Anything for my glorious leader, I'm sure."

A minute later the birds were singing, the wind was ruffling the grass, and the sun was shining through the place where they'd been standing.


	6. Snakes & Letters

_Chapter Six: In which our hero has an encounter with one of his least favorite people on earth, receives a letter, is compared to a snake again, and destroys the evidence._

It was a bleak night in the keep.

Rain was slashing at the windows and howling at the doors. The basement was probably going to flood again, which would send the giant spider scurrying for the stable, and then somebody would have to go in with a handful of grubs and coax it back out again.

Sand had no illusions about whose job that would end up being.

He sat in the library, surrounded by candles, and tried to concentrate on the book in front of him.

It was rough going. The book was dense and written in an arcane style that pre-dated the founding of Neverwinter, the wind was shrieking like a demented harpy, and he was cold.

He slipped a hand out of his sleeve, found his mug of mulled wine, and wrapped his fingers around it. It was warming, but not as much as he'd like.

Sand stifled a sigh.

Serafin was gone from the Keep, which was the reason he was freezing in the library in the small hours of the night. There'd been a nest of bandits to eradicate—really eradicate, not just skirmish with—and she wouldn't ask her men to do anything she wouldn't do herself.

"It's work for butchers, not soldiers," she'd told him that morning, smelling of death and iron. "Pulling men out of holes and cutting their throats. We'll be back in a day or two, I suppose."

He'd nodded. She hadn't asked him to come with her, and he hadn't offered.

She'd taken Bishop with her, who had little enough soul left, and Ammon Jerro, who had sold his long ago, and the Construct, which had never had one to begin with. The rain had already begun to fall when they left. Sand could imagine well enough what it would be like—knee deep in mud and blood, killing until there was nothing left living in the bandit camp to kill. Grim ugly work, with no glory and little enough reward.

He was not sorry to be missing it.

He took another sip of mulled wine and turned a page.

The candles flickered briefly as the door opened.

Sand lifted his head, and felt his lip curl.

_Oh, lovely. Just what I needed to make an already unpleasant evening complete._

"Torio," he said.

"Sand."

There were whole worlds of dislike wrapped up in both names.

"If you are looking for the pornography section of the library, there isn't one."

"That must be no end of disappointment for you."

Mutual pleasantries thus concluded, he folded his arms and waited while she crossed the floor.

She had a dry, reptilian scent, like a lizard on hot stones. He wondered if there was some githyanki blood somewhere in her family tree.

It wasn't a bad smell, exactly, but it reminded him very strongly of the Hosttower, and there were some things of which Sand preferred not to be reminded.

She sat on the edge of the table and smiled a cobra's smile. "Such hostility, Sand. And we're supposed to be on the same side, are we not?"

"Merely because I convinced the captain of your potential usefulness does not mean that I wish to make small talk with you." He took a sip of his drink.

"And yet there is so much I could offer you…" She leaned forward.

"Believe me…" he flicked his eyes over her with calculated insult, "you have _nothing _I want."

Torio shook her head. "Ah, but I do." She straightened, suddenly all business, and pulled an envelope from a pouch at her waist.

She held it up between two fingers, so that he could see the seal.

His eyes narrowed.

Even from a few feet away he could recognize the emblem of the Hosttower.

_Let's not fool ourselves. You'd recognize _that_ seal at the bottom of a mineshaft on a moonless night._

She flipped her fingers, turning it over. His name was written on it, in red ink.

Something in the pit of Sand's stomach lurched. He kept his voice even with difficulty.

"And what is that supposed to be?"

"Something you want."

_Don't show any weakness. Showing weakness to Torio is like sitting down with a shark and opening a vein._

He leaned back in his chair. "I doubt that highly."

"Oh well, you're probably right. I'll just dispose of it then, shall I?"

She held a corner of the letter out to one of the candles, and got no farther, because Sand's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Torio laughed with unfeigned delight.

"I knew you hadn't changed, you little snake."

_Well, so much for not showing weakness…_

He pried the letter out of her fingers, eying her with dislike. She didn't stop smiling, even when he pulled his dagger from his belt and slit the seal with rather more ferocity than was warranted.

She watched him read it, still smiling.

It was a brief letter. He read it twice, and looked over the top at Torio.

"Do you know what this says?"

"I've a good idea, yes."

"I ought to take this to the Knight-Captain right now."

"Yes, you probably should. Pity she isn't here right now."

He ran his thumb across the seal, feeling the familiar indentations in the wax. "If I take this to her, and tell her that you gave it to me—"

"She can hardly kill me for delivering someone's mail," purred Torio. "And someone—who could that have been?—already convinced her that I was worth more to her alive than dead."

"I'm quite certain they're regretting it now."

"Oh, no doubt." She laughed. "Your arguments were all very true, though—I can't go back to Luskan. It is certainly in my best interests if Crossroad Keep stands."

"And yet you're still doing the Hosttower's work."

"We all do the Hosttower's work eventually."

Sand gritted his teeth.

"Oh, don't act so offended, snake. Everyone knows your loyalties are as unstable as your namesake."

_Why is everyone comparing me to snakes lately? Have I been blacking out and eating live rats in public?_

"Still trying to play both sides, Torio? Haven't fallen far enough yet? You're already down in the gutter, but perhaps you'd like to start digging…"

She waved a hand lazily. "It's hardly playing both sides. For me, the occasional small favor for old friends may be the difference between being allowed to live here in peace, or being brought back on the end of a pike. For you…well…"

He tossed the letter onto the table. "Do you really think I'll sell Neverwinter out _this _easily?"

"It's of no matter to me whether you do or not." Torio stretched. "My job is merely to deliver the offer. Which I have been trying to do for some days, might I add."

He snorted, barely listening. The letter lay on the table, radiating the subtle menace of an unsheathed blade.

"Somewhat ironic, really…the one night I _can_ find you, the captain's away from the keep." Torio leaned her head back. "Interesting, that."

Sand felt his stomach lurch again.

_That's a shot in the dark. Don't show anything. Laugh at her._

He raised an eyebrow. "Don't be absurd. The captain already has two more suitors than she wants…and pitting myself against the ranger and the paladin would be a battle of wits against the unarmed."

"Poor little snake." Torio slid a finger under his chin. She had nails like poniards. "It was like that at the Hosttower too, wasn't it? Never appreciated. Always passed over by those smarter…those more talented… I remember."

Sand knocked her hand away, more annoyed than he wanted to admit.

_At least she's off the scent. Just keep your temper._

She sat down on the arm of his chair.

"Always trying to curry favor with those more powerful…And what did it get you, after all? A wretched shop in the Docks and an unheated library in a moldering keep."

He smiled sourly, twisting to look up at her. "As if you were any better. And here you are, in the exact same moldering keep…except that now you're alive entirely because _I_ spoke up for you."

"Are you really expecting me to fall all over myself with gratitude?"

"I expect nothing of you." He pinched the bridge of his nose. There was a headache starting to form behind his eyes. "Although it would please me greatly if you would leave."

"I'm sure it would." She stood up, looking down at him. Sand waited wearily for whatever parting shot she'd choose to deliver.

"Do you really think your precious Knight-Captain is going to survive long enough to be of any use to you, little snake? Heroes always die young. And then where will you be, but right back in your rat-hole of a shop, eking out a living from streetwalkers and their clients?"

"Well, you'd certainly be an authority."

It was a cheap shot, and she ignored it. "The Hosttower will outlive your Knight-Captain, Sand."

"Undoubtedly." He stood up, pushed his chair back, and smiled into Torio's eyes. "But I do know that she has already outlived Black Garius. So you'll forgive me, dear Torio, if I don't take _your _advice about where my loyalties should lie."

Her eyes narrowed. The scent of reptile and hot rock was like a blast of desert air.

"Then you're a fool, Sand." Her heels clicked on the library floor as she stalked away.

He should have let her keep walking. He should have kept his mouth shut.

She reached the door.

_Still…still…_

He'd never been able to let an opportunity go.

"This letter—" he began.

Torio paused at the door and turned her head.

"I'm not your contact, Sand. My loyalty, as you so eloquently argued, is to Neverwinter now."

She smiled. Sharp nails tapped against the doorframe.

"But I'm sure that if the Hosttower wants you…they'll let you know."

She left.

_Exit Torio, stage right. _Sand sagged back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

Rain beat at the windows. The candles flickered.

He read the letter for a third time.

He should take it to Serafin, as soon as she returned.

Well…perhaps not the exact moment she returned. She was going to want a hot bath and a night's sleep. But very soon after that.

Once the paperwork was dealt with.

When the moment seemed opportune.

At some point.

After he'd determined the letter's authenticity.

And possibly once he'd made sure this hypothetical contact for the Hosttower wasn't someone important—what if it was someone like Kana? Or Neeshka? Or Bishop? Someone privy to all their planning? That'd be the sort of thing she'd want to know.

He'd definitely tell her about it. When he knew more.

He read the letter for a fourth and final time, committing the words to memory.

Then he cleared the table, laid the page in the center, and held out a hand. Four arcane words, and the paper crumbled into cinders, and then into fine grey ash.

You did not serve the Hosttower for any length of time without learning not to leave incriminating documents lying around.

Sand reached for his mulled wine, but found that it had already gone cold.


	7. Sleep & Diaries

_Chapter Seven: In which our hero recieves something that is absolutely, positively, not a bribe. Not really. Hardly at all. Anyway, it's not like there's any way to give it back. _

Sand padded through the halls of the keep to his room.

No psychotic rangers had waylaid him enroute, no dragons had come crashing through the walls of the keep, no former diplomats had appeared to make sardonic comments. Sand had located a bottle of rather good brandy, and he and Serafin had made serious inroads on it.

That had been about all they did, in truth. Serafin had come back from killing bandits looking bleak and hollow-eyed, and Sand, who had seen that look often enough in the mirror, had come bearing alcohol. It didn't exactly kill the pain, but if you were drunk enough, you tended to forget just why you were miserable, and that was about the best you could hope for.

"Bloody hell, Sand," she said, for probably the twentieth time. "Bloody, bloody hell…" The firelight painted orange shadows across her face, and made her look closer to four hundred than he did.

She didn't particularly need a lover at that point, and she only barely needed a friend.

_What she really needs…_

"You need to go to sleep," he told her, taking the brandy glass away.

"Can't," she said, scrubbing at her face with her hands. "Had nightmares last night like…eh, you wouldn't believe. I'd just as soon not."

"Not sleeping is not going to help the matter."

"Mmmmph." She was getting that balked-mule set to her jaw again.

"As your personal physician…"

"I thought that was the gith."

"And who mixes all those healing potions, hmm? As your physician, I'm ordering you to sleep."

"I don't think so."

"I could order you as your lawyer…"

"You could try."

_Well, reason has failed, so we will settle for duplicity…_

He started rubbing her shoulders. He'd felt blocks of concrete with more give, but her head sagged a bit. Serafin chuckled tiredly.

"That's not going to put me to sleep, Sand, although I appreciate the thought."

"Perhaps not, but it can hardly hurt." He kissed the top of her head and murmured in Elvish—a nonsense rhyme used to keep track of the order of planets, but it sounded soothing, and furthermore, it allowed him to slip the words of a Sleep spell in without her noticing.

Either the alcohol or the exhaustion had lowered her defenses, because she passed out without even a token resistance. Her chin sank onto her chest and she went bonelessly limp under his hands.

Sand got an arm under her knees and another under her shoulders—the mass reduction cantrip was getting a lot of use lately—and dropped her into bed.

She was dead to the world. The back of her skull actually bounced off the headboard and she didn't so much as grunt. It would take a bit more than a kiss to wake her from this enchanted sleep. Sand was guessing it would require a hammer or amateur bagpipes.

_Possibly I overdid it a bit._

The elf stood and looked down at her, his arms folded. People were always supposed to look younger when they slept. Serafin merely looked tired, and a bit annoyed.

_Well, the spell ought to keep her from dreaming, and if she's angry at me in the morning, she can have me court-martialed._

He wrestled her boots off, pulled a blanket over her, and left her to whatever healing could be found in sleep.

Unfortunately, it was still fairly early in the evening, and he walked directly into Sergeant Kana, who had an armful of reports.

_Oops._

She looked from the door to the captain's quarters to him and narrowed her eyes.

_The one night I haven't done a damn thing to her, and I get caught. That's irony for you._

_Don't panic._ _Let's start with the truth and go from there._

"She complained of trouble sleeping. I've spelled her down."

"Ah." Kana's face cleared. "I see."

"I've gotten her boots off, but you should probably send a servant in for...everything else." He made a vague gesture.

"I shall do so. Thank you, wizard." She made a small jerk of her head that had the feel of a salute.

Sand nodded, walked away, and got around the corner before he clutched his chest and exhaled in relief.

The rest of his walk back to his room was uneventful.

_It's sad that that is starting to feel like a triumph._

Sand opened the door to his room and stepped inside.

He lit the candle with a word, closed the door behind him, and sank down onto the bed. He'd just lifted one foot and begun sliding off his boot when he saw it.

Sand froze.

There was a book on the table.

It was bound in tooled leather and embossed in silver that winked in the candlelight. The design on the cover was a stylized pitcher plant. He knew he hadn't left it there because he'd never seen it before in his life.

He recognized it, though.

_Oh, yes._

His boot succumbed to gravity and fell off. He put his foot down. The flagstones were freezing, but that was entirely unimportant.

He reached out and picked the book up with shaking hands.

The cover creaked open, and, as he'd known there would be, a letter fell out into his lap.

_Of course. _

He didn't even have to look at the seal to know what would be on it.

_The Hosttower moves quickly…_

Sand turned it over in his fingers and felt his heart give a painful squeeze.

There was a name written across it, _Sandaendaeran_, an elven word that, depending on where you put the accents, was either a man's name or a description of the shadow cast by the bones of a rabbit's ribcage under the moon.

Sand knew that name. He'd been born with it.

It had been a very long time since he'd used it. He'd been Sand for nearly two hundred years, because it was the only bit humans could remember, let alone pronounce.

He swallowed hard, and put the letter down.

_In a moment…in a moment…first, I have to know…_

The front page of the book was blank. The second page began directly at the top without title or chapter. There were no page numbers, but there were meticulously detailed illustrations—of apparatus, of the anatomy of various creatures, of the flowers of plants.

_It is. It is._

_Oh, Mystra's blood…_

He was holding in his hands a copy of the diary of Andraegen Vorn, possibly the greatest and certainly the most eccentric alchemist of the last thousand years.

His breath came a little faster.

The original was locked up somewhere in the Hosttower, and Sand had never risen high enough in the ranks to even be allowed to look at the catalog that listed it. There were less than a half-dozen copies known in the entire world. Due to Vorn's rather peculiar sense of humor, the diary could only be copied in a very particular ink, which required, among other things, dragon urine, raw silk, and molten silver, and even if you knew what you were doing, it didn't usually come out.

It could also only be copied if the scribe was wrapped naked in an uncured goathide during the dark of the moon, but the Hosttower had plenty of scribes for that sort of thing.

And now he had a copy in his hands.

He stroked the binding with a tenderness that Serafin would have recognized immediately, although she might have been a little disturbed to see it applied to a book.

Sand opened to a page at random, began to read, and within a paragraph had seen a usage for fire beetle bellies he'd never even dreamed of before. Two more pages revealed a whole new method of healing with potions under field conditions—_my god, would that work? Perhaps if you had an immensely strong stomach_—and a theory about using the law of contagion to generate large quantities of hard-to-get components, like the aforementioned dragon urine.

_My god. My god. My god._

When the Hosttower set out to bribe someone, they did not think small.

He tore his eyes away from the book with difficulty and picked up the letter. His name seemed to glitter in the candlelight.

The hand that slit the seal was not steady.

_Sandaendaeran—_

_The Arcane Brotherhood sends you this gift as a token of their regard, and a symbol of their hopes for a mutually beneficial arrangement. _

_We desire only information, something that we well know you are uniquely equipped to provide._

_A mutual friend will contact you by name._

There was no signature, but then, it hardly needed one.

Sand set the letter down in the middle of the stone floor. It took him three tries to disintegrate it, because his mind was running in tight little gibbering circles.

_Mygodmygodmygod…_

_There is a copy of the diary of Andraegen Vorn actually _in_ my hands._

He stared at it, swallowing hard, feeling an intellectual avarice so pure it was practically holy.

If the book and Serafin had been dangling over a cliff, and he could only save one of them…well, surely he'd save Serafin, of course. But he would have had to stop and think about it first.

_And all it's going to cost you is your loyalty and self-respect._

Sand was of the opinion that those were negotiable qualities.

Besides…it wasn't like he could give it back. What would he do, walk to Luskan and hurl it at the gates of the Hosttower? Hit Torio in the back of the head with it?

He hadn't agreed to do anything yet. It wasn't a bribe until he agreed to do something.

_We desire only information…_

He was already reporting on her to Nevalle. It wasn't as if Serafin didn't know he was a spy.

_Oh, rationalize a little harder, Sand, you've nearly convinced yourself…_whispered his sanity in an eerie echo.

With this book, he could do…well, some very impressive things, actually. To begin with, he could probably change the taste of the healing potions. Serafin was always complaining about the ripe olive taste. She'd appreciate that.

_You ought to go tell her right now that Luskan is trying to buy you. _

_I can't. She's knocked out and even if I could wake her up, I wouldn't._

_In the morning, then._

Sand licked his lips, opened it at random again. A spectacular diagram comparing the internal workings of horses and unicorns covered both pages. _Unicorns have two more stomachs? Who knew?_

Serafin had a lot on her mind.

Besides, the Hosttower obviously had a contact in the Keep, someone who could sneak in and drop the book in his room. He needed to ferret that out. He needed evidence. He needed proof.

He needed more candles to read by, and some parchment to take notes.

Sand fumbled around until he found another candle and lit it, without ever taking his eyes off the page.

Casavir, patrolling the hallways in the early morning, passed Sand's doorway and heard the sounds of a quill scribbling frantically over parchment, combined with a soft, feverish muttering in Elvish.

Probably still working. The mage hardly ever slept. Casavir considered his dedication to their cause to be admirable, even if the elf's sense of humor usually left him baffled.

Still, humor or not, he was the only one of the spellcasters that the captain had collected whose loyalty Casavir had never been inclined to question.

The paladin continued down the hall, with a measured tread, the scratch of quill on paper fading behind him.

_Author's Note: Diehard geeks may note that most of Sand's name is actually derived from badly bastardized Sindarin. Which is crossing universes, I grant you, but A) Elves get around and B) the man invented two perfectly good elven languages, and bugger if I'm re-inventing the wheel. (Also, no bloody on-line dictionary I could find listed "rabbit." Sure, fifty million words for moonlight, but no rabbits. Elves, man. I tell ya.)_


	8. Marble & Brimstone

_Chapter Eight: In which our heroine deals briefly with a lord of hell, has her extremities turned to stone, and bad things happen to neutral good people._

Koraboros was back, and boy, was he pissed.

"Aw, maaaaan…" Serafin peered over the top of her shield at the gigantic demon. It was terrifying, sure, but mostly just depressing. "I _liked_ him. He seemed so civilized."

"I quite agree," said Sand, from somewhere a little below her left shoulder. He was using her as a mobile shield wall again, muttering incantations under his breath.

"The perfidy of demons should not surprise you," said Casavir severely.

"I'm not surprised," she said, annoyed. They'd slogged out to Shandra's old farm, chasing Ammon Jerro, who had apparently gone off for a moment of family melancholy and gotten demons instead. She'd endured three days of the Traveling Ranger & Paladin Show, two nights of sleeping about five feet from Sand and not being able to do a damn thing about it, and endless hours of "Know that my feet hurt," and "Know that there are rocks under my bedroll." Serafin was frustrated, irritable, discouraged and not all that far from murder—but she was not at all surprised.

At least Casavir was acting normally, though. Her troops, never the most stable bunch, seemed to be dancing a bit closer to the edge of lunacy lately. Sand had been up to his eyeballs in some book he'd found in the library—he was normally a bit obsessive about books, but this was a whole new level. He didn't even put it down to eat—and Ammon Jerro had suddenly gotten very maudlin and was ambushing her with questions about his late granddaughter. Since that was still a fairly raw topic for Serafin, the demons came as something of a relief.

"I'm not surprised. I'm just _sad._ I hate killing people I like."

Ammon Jerro snorted. From somewhere off on her right flank, she could hear Bishop snickering.

Koraboros was smiling. It was a deeply creepy expression.

Serafin sighed. "Okay, guys. I'll go talk to him. There is absolutely no chance that'll work, but hey, never hurts. Get as many spells ready as you can, pray to whoever needs praying to, I want to see elementals from here to the horizon, and…uh…may the gods have mercy on our souls."

"Well, I know _I'm_ inspired," said Bishop.

She walked forward. Deprived of his human shield, Sand hid behind Casavir instead.

Ammon Jerro caught her sleeve as she passed. Serafin looked over at him. The shadows under his hood were very deep.

"Be careful, girl. He's smarter than you are."

"Gee, thanks."

"He's right, you know," said Sand, pausing in mid-incantation.

"Glad to know my troops have such confidence in me."

She walked forward anyway.

"He _is_ right," said Koraboros pleasantly, as she approached.

"Yeah, well." She hefted the shield and looked up—far up—into the demon's eyes. "I'm what we've got."

"If it is any consolation, mortal, I will regret destroying you. You dealt fairly with me."

Surprisingly, that actually _was_ some consolation. _My priorities have obviously gone all to hell._

"I don't suppose I could convince you to do this later?" She gestured back over her shoulder. "You leave me the warlock for now, and once the King of Shadows is dead, I'll have him hogtied and dumped in a summoning circle with your name on it."

Casavir gave her a shocked look. This was balanced out by Ammon Jerro, who actually looked approving for once.

Gigantic batwings fanned briefly at the air. "You tempt me, mortal…but no. I do not trust you."

"Okay…" _Well, it's a crazy idea, but why not?_ "How 'bout I give you a hostage? You know, as surety? You can send 'em back once you've got Jerro."

His shark-like white eyes narrowed appreciatively. "What a _practical_ idea..."

She glanced behind her, saw five sets of eyes watching her with varying expressions of horrified fascination. _Good god, they actually think I'd do it. _

_Well, I might._

_Gonna need the gith…on the other hand, if I could sell out Bishop before he sells me… _She turned back to Koraboros.

"Can I interest you in a used ranger?"

_"Hey!"_

Bishop looked torn between outrage and a peculiar sort of pride. Sand had managed to summon that creepy enchanted sword he liked, despite all the snickering he was doing. The cleric and the paladin just looked appalled.

Ammon Jerro at least had a shadowy monster of some variety out.

Koraboros was grinning again. She was pretty sure that the demon knew she was stalling, and also that he didn't care. "I have no use for rangers, mortal."

"Okay, how 'bout a paladin? I know for a fact that there's a succubus who will pay through the nose for this one."

Casavir had to look away, shaking his head in disbelief. She hoped Sand could still cast through his hysterics.

"Alas, no. He is a servant of the gods. Until he falls, I can do nothing to him."

Serafin glanced over at the paladin in question. "Can I convince you to fall in the next five minutes?"

"No," said Casavir flatly, and looked as if he wanted to say a great deal more, but didn't quite trust himself to get it out.

_Man, if I get hurt today, I am _not_ getting a laying on of hands…_

"It's the ranger or nothing I'm afraid," she told Koraboros. "I kinda need the cleric."

The demon tilted his head. She got the impression that he was enjoying this immensely. "And yet, you have not offered me the little moon elf…" he purred.

"Ah."

_Damn, Ammon was right. He _is _smarter than me, and I've got a bad feeling he can see at least partway inside my head…_

Sand stopped laughing rather abruptly.

"The screams of elves are very sweet," said Koraboros, narrowing eyes the size of dinner plates. His grin had passed way beyond creepy now.

Serafin looked back at Sand, who was starting to get that trapped-rat look he'd worn when they'd fought the dragon.

"I don't know…" she said casually, bringing her sword up. "The way I keep going, I'm bound to need a lawyer sooner or later. Do you have any _idea_ how much property damage this bunch does on a regular basis?"

The demon's head lowered until they were almost at eye level, although he had to hunch nearly double to do it. She could smell brimstone on his breath. "Tell me, little mortal…if I offered to take the wizard as my hostage—and left you Ammon Jerro until the King of Shadows is defeated—would you give him to me?"

Serafin was a trifle horrified to realize that she was considering it.

_Well, the world _needs_ Ammon…the only one who needs Sand is me._

"Well?" Koraboros's wings stretched forward, practically enfolding her.

"Yes!" called Bishop from the back.

"No!" said Casavir, looking ready to defend Sand single-handedly if need be.

"Possibly," said Ammon Jerro.

"Know that—" the gith started.

Sand snarled something in Elvish. She would have put good money that it translated as "If I go, I'm taking you all with me."

"Hmmmmmmmmm?" The demon tilted his head in an imitation of Sand so uncanny that he had to be pulling it straight out of her mind.

_That sneaky bastard._

"Well…" Serafin could see her own reflection in Koraboros's enormous eyes. She hadn't realized she looked so small, or so scared.

_Eh, screw it. Like Casavir says, there's never any good that comes of dealing with demons._

"No dice, big guy," she said, and swung her sword at her reflection.

He slapped her sword away as contemptuously as if she'd been wielding a toothpick.

Demons erupted out of the ground, while Koraboros laughed.

_I should probably've seen that coming…_

It was a fight after that, and not a pretty one.

Casavir and Bishop's jobs were to take down the sundry demons that had appeared on the scene, and Sand and Ammon Jerro's jobs were to fling spells until the farm was lit up with hellish fireworks.

Serafin's job was to hold Koraboros, which basically meant standing there with her shield over her head and trying not to die, while the cleric tried to undo whatever horrible thing the demon was currently doing to her.

It was excruciatingly painful, and it went on for a long time.

A demonic fist smashed into the shield at a bad angle, and she felt something snap inside her arm, which went numb to the elbow.

_Oh, crap._

The gith flung out a hand, and the inside of Serafin's arm got very warm, made a horrible squish-_pop!_ sensation—she yelped as much in disgust as pain—and then her fingers worked again and she slammed the shield up and deflected another blow that would have hammered her into the ground like a tent-peg.

Paralysis caught at her, and just as quickly fled. Some other spell went off and she thought vaguely _What a nice person Koraboros is…I do like him. I should really_—and then the gith got _that_ dispelled and she was so annoyed at being nearly charmed that she kicked the demon in the ankle, hard. Granted that his ankle came up to her waist, it didn't do much, but she felt marginally better.

"Fighting dirty, Koraboros."

"You cannot blame me for trying, mortal."

It was rather like being the rope in a particularly vicious magical tug-of-war.

Her world was broken down to what she could glimpse around the edges of her shield, but she still saw bits and pieces go by. Bishop grappling with a succubus, which would have been funny under other circumstances. Ammon Jerro, lips twisted in a sneer, raining death from the sky like he'd invented it.

Sand, momentarily out of spells, falling back on wands. She winced a bit at that, but then a heavy fist descended from on high _and_ her feet turned to stone simultaneously, and she didn't really have time to worry about it.

Serafin hated being turned to stone. It had happened twice, and it wasn't so much painful as excruciatingly uncomfortable. The bits that were already stone didn't hurt, of course, but the place where flesh and stone met would get this hot bruising sensation as blood tried to flow into arteries that were now solid granite and backed up instead.

Bishop sailed by in her peripheral vision, not under his own power. The paladin was chanting.

Her knees were turning to stone already.

"Zhjaeve, this is getting really uncomfortable…"

"Know that I am working as fast as I can!"

It was possible to keep track of the battle purely by sound. Someone yelling "Begone, fiend!" could only be Casavir, and the demonic laughter was actually Ammon Jerro. Bishop screamed obscenities while he fought, and Sand just screamed.

She appeared to be stone to the waist. It was going to be very hard to breathe in a minute.

She risked a glance down and saw that rather than the usual granite, her body had turned to a lovely rose marble.

"You're a class act all the way, Koraboros."

"It is always nice to meet a mortal who appreciates the finer things," he said, and tried to rip her head off.

She blocked it again, but he got those scythe-like nails under the edge of her shield and bent it back like steel origami.

_Oh, crapcrapcrap…_

She took a breath, felt a heaviness at the bottom of her lungs, and knew that it was going to be the last one.

Zhjaeve got the spell off.

Unfortunately, Serafin came unstoned from the ground up, which meant that for one horrible moment, she was marble from thigh to ribcage, and her knees were only flesh. They buckled.

She dropped to her knees. Her shield flew out of her hands, and Koraboros picked it up, crumpled it like a wad of paper, and tossed it over his shoulder.

_Well, that's it for me, I suppose._

Serafin got a last glimpse of the battlefield. Most of the demons were gone. Bishop was down, but moving, and Casavir was kneeling over him. Everyone appeared to still be alive. Zhjaeve was reaching for a weapon, which probably meant that more healing wasn't going to be forthcoming any time soon.

_Ah, well._

_Didn't do so bad, I guess. Other than me._

Vast leather wings swept in and enfolded her. She looked up, and up, and up.

"It would appear that your friends will win the day, mortal," said the demon. Spells splattered off his wings, lighting up the translucent membranes, so that they appeared to be standing in a cocoon of red stained glass. "But not, I think, without cost."

He reached down with those immense claws and shucked her breastplate off as easily as a man might pull the shell off a crab.

_More easily, actually. I always have to use those little forks…_

She could hear Ammon Jerro screaming invocations somewhere off to her left.

_C'mon, warlock, now would be a really good time…_

"I do apologize, mortal," said Koraboros, almost kindly. He extended a finger, and reached out.

_What's he doing?_ she thought vaguely. _Do I have something on my shirt?_

There was a shock of impact and something very very bad happened in the vicinity of her chest.

Serafin didn't scream. She was rather proud of that.

She looked down.

There was a claw going most of the way through her.

It was as big as a scythe and as thick as her forearm. She didn't dare turn her head to see if it was coming out the other side, because she was afraid she'd rip herself in half.

Judging by the pain in her back, though, she was indeed impaled on that claw like a butterfly on a pin.

"Oh," she said, and tasted blood.

It didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have. It hurt going in, and it hurt going out, but the bit in the middle wasn't painful at all. It just felt hot, and hard to breathe.

She gripped the top of the claw with her shield hand to steady herself. Koraboros had cuticles as thick as cowhide, and his flesh was so hot that she could feel it through her gauntlets. The edges of her wound were starting to smoke.

"Oh," she said again.

She could smell her flesh cooking. _Hey, I smell like bacon. _

_Sand'd probably find that interesting. He's always sniffing me when he thinks I'm not looking…_

The elf in question was shouting the words of one last spell.

_A little late, m'boy. But then, it was never your job to protect me._

She'd protected him, at least. And everybody else, too, for a little while. That wasn't such a bad way to die.

_If anybody can take on the King of Shadows, it's Ammon Jerro. He'll do okay without me. Sand'll help him._

It occurred to her that she'd dropped her sword, but that didn't seem to matter very much.

"You should have taken my offer," said the demon gently, breathing brimstone into her face.

"Couldn't have done that," she whispered. She could feel a cough waiting down at the bottom of her lungs, but if she did, that immense claw would tear her up even worse.

"I know, mortal. But I enjoyed asking you."

He lifted his head, as if hearing something. She could hear a baritone voice snarling dark words. Perhaps Ammon Jerro had finally finished whatever he was doing.

"Goodbye, mortal. We will not meet again in this life."

"Too bad," she whispered.

There was a flash of light and Koraboros turned into roiling smoke and vanished into the ground.

And suddenly it hurt rather a lot. That claw had apparently been holding things together in there. Serafin pitched forward on her face, which hurt a lot more.

_Heh. And here all this time I thought _Bishop _was the one who was gonna kill me…_


	9. Potions & Giblets

_Chapter Nine: In which our heroine is not allowed to die in peace, has a moment of empathy for stuffed turkey, is briefly sentimental about paladins, and finally says something meaningful to Sand._

There was dirt.

There was quite a lot of dirt. It was excellent dirt, too, a nice loam. If she'd been back home in West Harbor, she'd have been very pleased with the quality. You could grow a zucchini the size of a man's leg in dirt like that.

Her face was mashed into it.

_If I were of a more philosophical turn of mind, I'd make an analogy about how we come from dirt and to dirt we return, but bein' me, I'm just going to ask—why the heck am I facedown in this stuff?_

She tried to breathe, and it went all bubbly. There was a strange distant pain from her midsection.

_Ah. Yes. Dying. That's right._

_Funny thing to forget._

Serafin would have been content to die facedown in the dirt, which was at least dark and peaceful, but some idiot rolled her over.

"Dear god!" said Casavir.

He appeared to have a glowing aura of light around him. This did not surprise Serafin at all, but then Bishop appeared next to him, and had one too, and that probably meant that there was just something wrong with her eyes.

Come to think of it, the light was really excruciating bright.

Bishop dealt Casavir a ringing blow upside the head and shouted "Heal her, you bloody idiot!"

"I _can't!_" the paladin shot back. "I have nothing left."

"The cleric—"

"Know that I cannot."

Gods, why did they always have to argue? Couldn't she at least _die_ in peace? Serafin tried to yell at them to just shut up and let her get on with dying, but her mouth was full of blood. She could feel it trickle over her lips, and then it slid down her chin and itched, which was also very annoying.

"You're all _useless_," Sand snapped, elbowing the Casavir out of the way.

_You tell 'em, Sand. Make them go away so I can die quietly. _

The elf dropped to his knees, set his pack down next to him, and began pulling out bottles.

_Oh, lord, not you, too._

"Perhaps a bandage—" Casavir began.

Sand ripped her shirt open, tearing the cloth away from where it had melted to the edges of the wound, and Serafin felt her whole body jackknife with the pain.

_Ohgodohgodohgodthathurtshurtshurts_hurts--

She tried to scream, but her throat seemed to be full of blood.

The gith put her hands up to her veil in dismay.

"Yeah, you're not gonna be able to bandage _that,_" said Bishop.

"I don't intend to." Sand picked up a bottle.

"It won't work, man," said Ammon Jerro gruffly. "She can't swallow. You'll never get them down her in time."

Serafin was having a hard time thinking, with the echoes of that ripping pain still bouncing around her head, but she pretty sure that the warlock was right.

"Who is the alchemist here, again?" Sand shoved his sleeves up to the shoulder, yanked the cork out of the first bottle with his teeth, and spat it to the side. It was probably coincidence that it hit Casavir.

Serafin wanted to snicker, but it would have hurt much too badly.

The elf dumped a measure of potion into his cupped palm, glanced up at her face, gritted his teeth, and shoved his hand up to the wrist in the hole in her torso.

"What in the name of Tyr are you _doing?"_ said Casavir, appalled.

_Yeah, I was kinda wondering that myself…_

"Saving her life, unlike you." He withdrew a bloody hand, dumped another handful of potion into it, and went back in.

About a thousand years ago, when she'd been a kid in West Harbor, Serafin had watched Bevil's mother Retta stuff a turkey. (Daeghun, graduate of the Adventurer's School of Cooking, did not stuff turkeys. Serafin had been in her late teens before she learned that most families did not regularly dine on a handful of granola and burnt squirrel-on-a-stick.)

She had a sudden appreciation of how the turkey must have felt to have someone elbow-deep in their innards. It didn't help that Sand was wearing the exact same expression of intense concentration and mild disgust that Retta Starling had worn.

_He's dumping potions directly on my giblets. That can't be healthy._

_You know, I could have died five minutes ago and been much happier._

"You can't expect that to work." Bishop was shaking his head.

"I can, and it will. The heat cauterized it already. She's not going to bleed out for a bit yet."

"You'd have to patch up that hole—by hand, no less—and you don't have nearly enough potions."

"I don't have to _fix_ her, I just have to get enough closed up so we can move her."

"You're insane, elf."

"If you don't have anything useful to say, I suggest you shut up and let me _work_!"

Things went kind of grey for awhile then. Serafin wandered in a foggy place with no sense of north or south, and only a vague sense of up or down.

She came back because there was a horrible ringing in her ears, and it wouldn't let her rest. She opened an eye, and discovered that her head was in Casavir's lap.

_You're a day late and a copper short, paladin…_

She couldn't quite manage to lift her head, but she peered down the sides of her nose and saw Sand. He had a much diminished pile of potions next to him, and there was so much blood on his hands that he looked as if he were wearing elbow-length red gloves.

As she watched, his hair fell in his eyes and he shoved it back impatiently. He'd apparently been doing this a lot, because it had dried in stiff black hanks, and there were red smears across his forehead.

_Heh heh heh. An elf with lousy hair. It only took dying to see it. _

She wished she'd die a bit faster, though. All this hanging around was getting annoying, and she was very thirsty.

Sand opened another potion, leaving bloody fingerprints on the bottle.

"She is awake," said Casavir, although he didn't sound particularly happy about it. He peered down at her. He looked sad, but then he always looked sad.

_Poor Cas. You don't really deserve all the crap we give you. _

_Okay, I'm definitely dying, if I'm getting all sentimental about the paladin. _

"Is the pain very bad?" he asked.

Could she talk? Her throat seemed clearer. Maybe she didn't have any blood left. She tried.

"…no."

Apparently she could talk. _How 'bout that?_

It really didn't hurt as much as it should.

_Well, I assume I'm in shock. The fact I can't move is kind've a giveaway._

"…thirsty…"

"You may wet her lips, but do not give her enough to swallow," Sand ordered.

She got a clear view of the underside of Casavir's chin as he lifted his head. "Sand, you cannot keep her alive much longer." His deep, mournful voice made her skull vibrate. "Let me give her some water and ease her dying."

_Listen to the paladin, Sand. _

Sand's voice was absolutely flat. "Do it, and I will have the ranger kill you. He has been looking for an excuse anyway."

"That's true," said Bishop pleasantly, from somewhere behind them.

"Besides, she's regained consciousness. It's working." He bent forward, dumped out more potion, and—

--and everything went bright and then red and then there was no thinking at all but the ringing was very loud, like temple bells inside her skull, and she would have screamed but her throat had turned to stone, and the ringing was very, very loud, except that she could just hear someone yelling—

"She's seizing!"

"Then hold her down!"

"Sand, you cannot do this. This is torture. I care for her too, but you have to let her _go."_

"Bishop, Ammon, remove him."

"With pleasure."

There was a brief scuffle. The back of her head bounced off the ground, and that did hurt, except that the ringing was much louder than pain. Her whole body seemed to be made up of that awful ringing.

Sand began to curse in Elvish, somewhere about a million miles away.

Serafin went away to the grey place for a little while again.

When she came to this time, her vision was clearer. Unfortunately, it was clearly showing Bishop, who had an arm across her chest and was pinning her to the ground.

"Hi," he said.

She tried to say something, but there appeared to be something in her mouth.

The ranger reached out and removed a leather belt from her mouth. "Didn't want you to break your teeth. Of course, at this point, it probably doesn't matter."

"…thanks…"

"Always kinda wanted to get you held down and tied up, but I have to say, I'm not enjoying it as much as I hoped."

From Bishop, this was practically an expression of heartfelt sympathy. She responded in kind.

"…screw you…"

"She's awake again," Bishop informed Sand.

"Good."

The ranger, with an I'm-not-being-nice, I-was-going-to-do-this-anyway sort of expression, got an arm under her head and propped her up a bit.

Ammon Jerro was holding her legs. Casavir and the gith were standing about ten feet away, watching the proceedings with identical expression of disapproval and horror.

Sand, hollow-eyed, was dumping out the last potion into his palm.

_So the healers have abandoned me, the two most evil people I know are holding me down, and Sand is performing exploratory surgery with his bare hands._

_Yeah, I've had better days._

It occurred to her that her sudden mental clarity meant that she was probably going down for the last time.

_Should probably say something to Sand. _

_Something meaningful._

_I love you? _

_Nah, that'd just make the last minutes of my life really awkward._

She thought for a minute, and then she had it. Something meaningful. Something he'd appreciate.

"…Sand?" That came out pretty clear. Maybe he'd managed to do some good after all.

"Don't try to talk."

"…if I die…."

"You won't."

"…want you to know…"

"Stop talking."

"…if you can use any bits of my corpse…for spell components…take 'em…"

From somewhere down by her knees, Ammon Jerro made a sound of black amusement.

"Duly noted," said Sand irritably, "and now stop talking. That's an _order._"

"…anything for my…glorious leader…I'm sure…"

She relaxed. Those had been pretty good last words. She'd never expected to go out heroically, but at least she could go out snide.

Something was making snail tracks through the blood and dust on Sand's face. She chose to believe that it was sweat.

_Definitely sweat. If I thought I'd reduced him to tears, I'd actually start to feel bad about dying._

The moon elf got up on his knees and leaned over her. There was an inch or so left in the bottom of the last bottle. "If I'm right, you should be able to keep this down now."

"What if you're wrong?" asked Bishop.

"It'll go into her lungs, she'll choke, and the coughing'll tear everything all to hell again."

"Nice."

Serafin noticed, in a detached sort of way, that his eyes were so pale they were almost white. _Is it possible for eyes to blanch? I should ask somebody…I bet Grobnar'd know…_

"Here goes nothing…" Bloody fingers caught her chin and Sand poured the last few drops into her mouth.

More ripe olives—but she was so very thirsty. She thought she could probably even get to like olives.

She swallowed.

A few seconds slid by, and Sand closed his eyes and a brief expression of unutterable relief passed over his face.

_If this means I'm not going to die, I'm going to be kind of disappointed._

He stood up. "All right then. Get her on the paladin's shield, it's the best we can do for a stretcher. If we can avoid dropping her, I think she's stable enough to move."

Casavir shook his head silently. He passed out of Serafin's view, although she heard footsteps, and then she heard a clang of metal and someone picked her up and she passed out again.

Unconsciousness this time was black instead of grey, and she fell headlong into it into a place where there was no pain at all.


	10. Clerics & Cookies

_Chapter Ten: In which our hero runs out of ideas, Bishop has a surprisingly good one, and encounters are had with dark clerics and the best chocolate chip cookies evil can make._

"I didn't want to mention this, since we were all having so much fun," said Bishop, "but there's no healers in Highcliff."

Sand looked at the ranger blankly. He knew all the words, but they didn't seem to have any meaning as a whole.

"He is correct," said Casavir somberly. "The evacuation has proceeded."

Sand absorbed this. It took a long time.

He looked down at Serafin, slung across the paladin's shield.

_Come back with your shield or on it. Isn't that what they used to say?_

She was deathly pale. She was always pale, she could blush like no woman he'd ever met, but this was something else again, a waxy whiteness as if she'd been carved out of soap.

Her lips were no longer blue, but he didn't know how long that would last.

She looked annoyed. For some reason, this was an immense relief. If she hadn't looked annoyed, Sand would have despaired of her survival, but the thin line of irritation between her eyes was like an anchor to normalcy, albeit a dreadfully fragile one.

_Can I keep her alive until the healers recover?_

Sixteen hours, more or less. He couldn't imagine that she'd last that long. It was a desperate stop-gap measure. He'd bought her a few hours at most, no more.

He still couldn't quite believe it.

It had been the diary. A throwaway suggestion on battlefield healing—that for massive internal injuries and too few potions, if you could apply them directly to the internal organs, you could patch everything together crudely enough for the victim to live until you could find a cleric.

He hadn't known if it would work. He hadn't seen how it _could_ work.

He hadn't been able to think of any other options. Every spell he'd ever learned had deserted him.

All he'd been able to think of was that if Serafin died, he'd never be warm again.

But it was working. There was still a gaping hole in her chest, hidden under the ranger's cloak, but between the cauterization from the demon's heat and his incredibly crude surgery—she wasn't dead.

_Unfortunately, that isn't going to mean much if we can't get her to a real healer in the next couple of hours._

_I have to think of something._

_I have to think._

_I…can't think of any thing._

Sand realized that he was out of brilliant ideas. He leaned down and laid two fingers across Serafin's throat, feeling for a pulse. It was thready and rapid, but it was there.

_For how much longer?_

All those nights, all the stupid things he'd said before, during, and after, and he'd never once told her that he loved her.

_But I… _

_Maybe not, but would it have killed you to lie?_

His sanity intruded._ While I enjoy beating myself up as much as the next person, assuming the next person's not Casavir, this is _not_ helping._

"You know…" said Bishop casually.

Something in the tone brought Sand's head up. The paladin was watching the ranger like a retriever on point.

"Happens…there's a shrine about an hour away from here. I know the woman who runs it."

"I have not heard of this shrine," said Casavir.

"They don't like to advertise."

"Why not?" asked the paladin suspiciously.

Bishop smiled, not quite meeting anyone's eyes. "It's kinda…dedicated to Mask."

"Mask," said Casavir coolly, "is an evil god."

"Let's just say he doesn't have the best press, shall we? Anyway, a cleric's a cleric."

The gith hissed.

"How do you know this?" asked Ammon Jerro.

Bishop shrugged. "I know this woman. She got religion." He ran his tongue over his lower lip. "_Bad_ religion."

"You never mentioned this before," said Casavir warily.

"It's never really come up."

"You cannot believe that an evil cleric would be willing to help us."

Bishop and Ammon Jerro grinned identical grins, all teeth and no kindness.

_Our dark credentials at the moment _are_ fairly spectacular…_

"Bad people get hurt too," said Bishop softly. "She's quite a healer."

"I do not—"

"Will she help us?"

It was a surprisingly determined voice. Sand was somewhat appalled to discover that it was his.

"Mother Haggard? Oh, yeah, she'd be delighted. Loves visitors." He paused, thought about that for a moment, and then added, "Generally lets them go afterwards, too."

Casavir made a dangerous rumbling sound. Sand was fairly sure the paladin was getting pushed to the breaking point, and was also fairly sure he didn't care.

"I do not think this is wise," said the paladin.

"Not really your decision, is it?" asked Bishop. "Since our lawyer seems to be calling the shots at the moment."

Everyone looked at Sand.

_Who died and put me in charge?_

He winced internally.

_Oh…right._ There was a kind of embarrassed mental cough. _Sorry._

Serafin had always claimed that leadership was easy. "You just give orders. People love orders. It means they're not to blame when it all goes to hell."

She would have laughed until she choked to see Sand now.

_A cleric of the god of thieves?_

_Do you care?_

He didn't. At this point he'd have marched up to a temple of the mad god Cyric and hammered on the door until somebody answered, and filled the collection plate with a clear conscience afterwards.

"We'll do it," he said.

"The gith can't come with us. Mother Haggard's not so keen on other clerics."

"Zhjaeve, go back to Crossroad Keep. Tell—"

Sand had to stop and think. _Good god, are all the competents in our party really here? How depressing._ "Tell…Mystra help us...Elanee. And—" he grimaced, "—Daeghun if you can find him. If we're not back in a week, tell Kana exactly what happened." He looked up at Bishop for confirmation.

The ranger nodded.

_It'll all be over by then anyway, so they can hardly mess things up any worse._

The cleric gave Sand a long, wary look behind her veil, then inclined her head. "Know that it shall be so, wizard."

She turned and walked away, kicking up dust with every step.

"And now that the cleric's gone," said Bishop pleasantly, when Zhjaeve had vanished around the bend, "and you're outnumbered three to one, I'm gonna need to get an oath from you, paladin."

Casavir's eyes narrowed.

"Mother Haggard's a pretty vital part of the smuggler's network around here, and I'm not gonna go dragging a holy warrior to her doorstep if you're going to turn around and tell the authorities where she's located, understand?"

"You are asking me to lie to protect an evil cleric."

"I'm _telling_ you that you're _going_ to keep your mouth shut."

The paladin's hand came to rest oh-so-casually on the hilt of his sword.

_I cannot believe they're still arguing. Do they never get tired? _

"Do it, Casavir," said Sand quietly.

"You cannot mean to place her in evil's hands."

"Good has rather fallen down on the job today, if you haven't noticed."

The paladin looked briefly stricken. Sand felt a twinge of guilt, and a somewhat larger twinge of triumph.

_The man is _so_ easy to tie in knots. _

Casavir met the elf's eyes, almost pleading, but whatever he was looking for, Sand doubted it was there.

_Don't expect sympathy right now, my dear paladin. If I have to talk you into falling on your sword, I'll do it. Should take about five minutes. Four if the ranger keeps his mouth shut._

_You would not _believe_ the things I'm willing to do right now._

It was Ammon Jerro, strangely enough, who came to the rescue, with that deep, dark laughter. "If you're really that worried about the state of her soul, paladin, you had better come with us to safeguard it, don't you think?"

Casavir inhaled sharply, and then bowed, very stiffly, to the warlock. "Very well."

He nodded to Bishop.

Bishop smiled.

The ranger had said that the shrine was about an hour away, and probably if you were moving at a normal pace, it was.

Using a shield as a stretcher, with two men carrying, it took twice as long.

They were not the longest hours of Sand's life, a distinction that would forever be held by the night he'd fled the Hosttower, but they were definitely in the running.

The irony was that if they'd had a scrap of magical power left between them, they could have made it a great deal easier. Sand's mass-negating cantrip only worked for a minute or so—it was useful for carrying heavy boxes, not the injured—but Ammon could have summoned up any number of vile beasts from the netherworld and ordered them to carry a side.

But they were both wrung out and drained dry, and so it fell to brute strength and Casavir and Bishop to each grab an end and haul.

Sand could not say that he liked Casavir very much—"good-natured contempt" probably summed up his opinion best—but he had to admit, the man could carry a stretcher. Bishop wore out and had to be replaced by Ammon, Ammon wore out and was (briefly) replaced by Sand, but the paladin soldiered on.

Every time they stopped, Sand checked Serafin's pulse. Every time it seemed a little faster and a little weaker. Her breathing was definitely getting shallower.

After nearly an hour, they called a brief halt. Even Casavir was wearing out.

"I can't believe we're going to all this trouble for a wench," muttered Bishop, sitting on a rock.

Sand ran that through his Bishop-to-Common mental phrasebook, and got back "I'm tired and upset and I want a fight as a distraction."

Nobody had the energy to give him one.

The moon elf drew his knees up and rested his forehead on crossed arms, and tried to think of nothing at all.

Mother Mystra, he was tired.

He couldn't clear his head. He kept seeing that moment when the demon had dematerialized, and for one sickening instant, he could glimpse daylight clear through Serafin's body.

When she had fallen, looking not so much hurt as very surprised, Sand had heard himself thinking _If she dies, I will apprentice myself to Ammon Jerro, if it takes a thousand years, and I will summon Koraboros and I will kill him with my bare hands._

This was such a strange thing for him to think that he waited automatically for the sarcastic rejoinder—and didn't get one.

_How strange, how very strange._

_Obviously I am losing my mind at a faster rate than I anticipated._

_I blame Grobnar, just on general principle._

He raised his head, and saw Ammon Jerro dump part of his waterskin onto a rag, wring it out with a practiced gesture, and press it to Serafin's lips.

The warlock saw Sand watching him and said "My daughter used to get fevers all the time."

It was always hard to remember that this dreadfully evil man had once had a life and a family and children, until he did something like that. It was either terribly sad or terribly creepy or both.

_Probably more paternal affection than she ever got from Daeghun anyway._

He was so very tired. He let his head drop onto his arms again.

Bishop came up and thumped him on the shoulder.

"_Mana tyára-le méra?"_

"So's your mother."

Sand tried to focus. _Ah. Common. Yes_. Good lord, he must be exhausted. "What do you want?"

"Time to go."

They kept going. It didn't get any better, but it didn't get any worse, either.

_Will an evil cleric really help us? How do we prove that we're bad enough people to be worthwhile?_

_Probably make us eat puppies or something._

_Hmm._

_Well, shouldn't be a problem for Bishop. Ammon'll just be disappointed it's not babies._

_Casavir…hell, I'll probably have to eat his, too._

_I hope we're allowed salt._

_Uh, Sand?_ His sanity sounded a trifle concerned. _You're getting a little strange on me. _

_Sorry. It's been a long morning._

By the time they finally arrived, Sand thought he might be so tired that he was seeing things. Even after he blinked a few times, though, the sight didn't change.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected from a shrine to the god of thieves, but an enormous upside-down bird's-nest in the middle of a clearing wasn't quite it. It looked more like a gigantic beaver lodge than a temple.

_I wonder if there are dire beavers? Seems like there must be…there's dire everything else. I would imagine they have very large teeth. I should ask Elanee. Bishop would know, but I'd have to endure an hour worth of dirty jokes to get a yes or no…_

There was a wooden door in the middle. They set Serafin down and Bishop walked up to the door and hammered on it with his fist.

The door flung back and a woman stepped out.

In all honesty, when Bishop had said that he'd known a woman, Sand—and probably everyone else—had assumed he meant…well…it was _Bishop. _You only expected one thing from the women in Bishop's life. The only thing that saved the ranger from being a raging misogynist was that he didn't much like men, either.

Whatever Sand had expected from either a cleric of Mask or one of Bishop's old flames, it wasn't a middle-aged woman who weighed three hundred pounds if she weighed an ounce and had forearms the size of hamhocks.

"Bishop, honey!" cried the woman, and seized the ranger in a bone-cracking embrace.

"Hi, Mother Haggard." He patted her affectionately on the back and shot the other members of the party a look indicating that if they ever mentioned this, there would be enough arrows in the back to go around.

The smell Sand was picking up was something deep and dark, like tar, with an odor of fresh baked cookies floating over the top of it.

"How've you been, lovey?"

"It's a long story…"

"You haven't visited me for ages! _So_ good to see you!"

Sand discovered he was having a hysterical urge to giggle and bit down on it firmly.

The ranger disentangled himself. "I brought someone for you, Mother Haggard."

Mother Haggard grinned, displaying a surfeit of chins. "So I see…" Her eyes moved appreciatively over Casavir and settled on Ammon Jerro. "Raowr. What's your name, lovey?"

Sand had to bite on a knuckle. If he started laughing, it would turn into crying or screaming and he didn't think he could take it.

_Serafin would have given her right arm to see this_, he thought, and that sobered him at once.

Ammon once again surprised him. The warlock bowed as elegantly as a paladin and said "A pleasure, madam."

"That's Ammon, Mother, but he's not the one." Bishop pointed to the shield, and Serafin curled up under his cloak.

"Oh, the poor dear." Mother Haggard, surprisingly light on her feet for her bulk, bent over the shield and reached for the cloak. "What ails the poor…_Black God's balls!_ What'd she do, catch a ballista?"

"Demon," said Ammon succinctly.

Mother Haggard was suddenly all business and bustle. "All right, get her in by the fire, and I'll take a look. Amazed the poor thing's still alive, really, but we'll have her right as rain or in the ground by nightfall."

This was not precisely comforting, and yet Sand found himself oddly comforted anyway.

_Any chance is better than none…_

The inside of the bird's nest was dim and hung with bunches of herbs. A central hearth burned brightly. Hide screens separated large chunks of the building from view.

Sand would have to admit, it was the first shrine to a dark god he'd been in that smelled like baking bread, or that had a plate of what looked like chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen table.

The walls, perhaps appropriately, were hung with masks. Most of them were crudely carved wooden pieces, bits of bark with eye holes knocked into them, but a few were surprisingly elaborate. He recognized elven scrollwork on a few.

Directly over the hearth, a mask lacquered black smiled eyelessly at the visitors. Sand did not require the sudden whiff of magic to know that it was a bit more than a work of art.

It was not the oddest place he'd been in the last few months, but it was still…peculiar.

They laid Serafin out on a pallet in front of the fire. Bishop retired to a chair at the kitchen table, but Casavir stood by his leader's feet, looking like a renegade bit of temple statuary.

Mother Haggard smiled up at him. She came barely to his collarbone.

"You're a paladin, aintcha?"

Casavir narrowed his eyes. "Yes."

"I can always spot 'em. You can lay off the detect evil there, lovey, Mother Haggard makes no bones 'bout the nature of the company she keeps."

"I will be watching you," said the paladin, steel showing through the chivalry. "If you harm this woman…"

"Now, now." She waved a finger at him. "Just because I'm a dark cleric doesn't make me a bad person. I'll do right by your lady." She pushed past him and bent over the pallet. "You just sit your cute little holy butt down and have a chocolate chip cookie or two, and quit breathing down Mother Haggard's neck."

Ammon Jerro made a noise that Sand had never heard the warlock make before. Bishop's shoulders were shaking.

Casavir sat down in a chair, folded his arms, and pointedly ignored the cookies.

Mother Haggard settled herself ponderously to the hearth and dug a chain out from around her neck. A dark metal symbol flashed briefly in the firelight.

"They're great cookies," said Bishop, sliding the plate over.

_Leave it to the ranger to find a way to offer someone a cookie that twists the knife…_

"Damn straight," said the cleric. "I'll bet you nobody in the Temple of Tyr can beat my chocolate chip."

Sand waited for Casavir to defend the cookie-baking honor of Tyr, but the paladin had closed his eyes, locked his fingers over the hilt of his sword, and appeared to be praying silently for strength.

"Mind you, the priests of Helm do a mean gingersnap…ah, there we go." She clucked her tongue. "Interesting. Somebody did some work on this girl already, didn't they?"

"That would be me, yes." Sand nodded.

She gave him an odd, penetrating look. "Really, now. Wouldn't think it to look at you."

"Wouldn't think what?"

"All this halfway patching…that's a torturer's technique, lovey. How you keep 'em from bleedin' out on the table 'fore you've got what you want. Didn't do a bad job of it, either. Red Flower, were you? Maybe did a little work for the Grim Hand back in the day?"

"I…"

The other three men were looking at him. The quality of the silence got very, very loud.

_Is it actually possible for this day to get any worse? _

_Only if Duncan somehow shows up._

"I read about it. In a book."

"Sure you did, duck." She chuckled. "Well, either way. Y'ever looking to keep your hand in, I know a few boys who can always use the help. Now, then…"

She cracked surprisingly delicate knuckles, closed her eyes, and began to pray.

When Casavir prayed, Sand had always thought it sounded like a dirge. Mother Haggard, on the other hand, sounded less like a hymn and more like she was scolding the god into doing her bidding.

Sand had never met a god, and devoutly hoped to avoid doing so, but he couldn't help but wonder how Mask felt about being addressed as if He was about to be sent to bed without His supper.

A deep violet glow began around the cleric's hands, and then Serafin's back arched and she screamed.

_Oh sweet Mystra, what have I done?_

Casavir shot to his feet, half-drawing his sword with a ring of steel. Bishop and Ammon got a hand on each shoulder and slammed him back down in his chair again.

"Come now, lovey," said Mother Haggard, with a purely malicious smile, "I'm a dark cleric. Our spells don't come with painkillers."

The paladin's eyes were rolling white like a panicked horse.

"Anyway, she won't remember it," said the cleric, shoving her sleeves back. "Well…most of it."

_You did this. You agreed to this. You gave the orders, so it's your fault now that it's all gone to hell. _

As if in a dream, Sand rose from his chair, walked to the pallet, and dropped to his knees. Serafin was panting like an exhausted hound, her eyes squeezed tightly shut and her hands fisted in the blanket.

Mother Haggard nodded to him. "Hold her head, will you, duck? Bit easier when they don't wiggle." She elbowed him in the ribs. There was a surprisingly sharp elbow located under the dimpled fat. "'Course, you knew that already, didn't you?"

Sand shook his head mutely. Haggard bent her head over her holy symbol again.

"Go outside," Ammon Jerro was saying to Casavir. "This is no place for good men."

"I cannot—"

"Do it. I will watch her, I swear on the blood of my granddaughter. But _go."_

The paladin went.

"Good idea. Bishop, love, I haven't had a fresh bit of game in a hen's age. Go kill us some dinner, there's a good boy."

"Mother _Hag_gard…"

"And don't you be snipping at your paladin friend either. Boy like that's gonna crack soon enough without any help from you, and Mother Haggard's too old for angst on her doorstep."

The ranger went.

"Lordy, those boys can really make a room feel small, can't they?"

"We call them the Traveling Ranger & Paladin Show," said Sand tiredly. The cleric cackled.

The hell of it was, despite the screaming, it seemed to have worked. Serafin's breathing, while still ragged, was no longer so shallow. The pulse under Sand's fingers seemed stronger.

"Gonna give her another jolt. Might want to talk to her, lovey, she'd probably be glad for a friendly voice."

Sand licked his lips. He couldn't think. He was too tired, and he felt increasingly like he'd wandered into someone else's nightmare. "What should I say?"

_You, at a loss for words. Now I know we're in trouble. _

"Anything you like."

He opened his mouth and heard himself say "Did you know that unicorns have two more stomachs than horses?"

_I sound like Grobnar. Great._

It went on like that, and it went on for awhile.

Mother Haggard kept up that terrible painful healing, and Serafin shrieked until she got hoarse, and Sand kept talking, telling her anything he could think of—every use he knew for powdered ogre bones and how he should have been a glassblower because the overhead on all those flasks was going to bankrupt him and, in loving detail, every flaw possessed by her uncle Duncan, a recitation that went on for nearly ten minutes and did not repeat once.

After awhile he realized he'd lapsed into Elvish, but that probably didn't matter, since he had no idea what he was saying anymore anyway.

"_Im mela le. Tyára-le ista tana? Im tyara…"_

"That's probably enough, duck."

Sand opened his eyes. It took him a moment to focus. He'd nearly fallen asleep, still talking. Maybe he _had_ been asleep. What had he been saying?

"Is…" He had to clear his throat. "Is it done?"

"Not quite, lovey, but she's stable now, and I need a rest. You look about ready to drop. I'll put the kettle on, shall I?"

She didn't wait for a response. Sand rubbed his eyes.

Serafin looked better. There was a line of pain between her eyes and she'd bitten her lip, but her skin had lost that terrible waxiness, and her breathing was deep and slow.

"She's going to live?"

"Eh, nothing's ever certain. But if she were a horse, I'd put two gold on her to at least show."

It took a minute for Sand to work that out to a yes.

He pulled the cloak back.

Serafin's torso was one vast mottled bruise, and there was a raw red scar the size of Sand's fists—but she no longer looked like _Diagram of Human Internal Anatomy, fig. A._

_Oh, thank you, Mystra…or Mask, I suppose. Thank you, someone. _

He got up and fell into a chair at the table. Ammon Jerro nodded to him, eyes still as unreadable as flint. The warlock had pushed his hood back.

Mother Haggard passed around mugs of tea and sat down herself. She gave Ammon a thoughtful look.

"Knew a lad with tattoos that glowed in the dark. Not much good in a fight, but very useful for finding keyholes." Ammon snorted.

Sand took a sip of the tea. It was very warming, and didn't taste all that bad. He felt—well, still tired, but not quite so ready to collapse.

"This is excellent. What is in it, if I may inquire?"

"Best not to ask, lovey. Good stuff, though, isn't it?"

Well, she was drinking it too, so it probably wasn't poison.

He helped himself to the best chocolate chip cookies evil could offer, and they were indeed excellent.

"Here." She handed him another mug. "Take one out to your paladin friend."

Sand glanced at Ammon Jerro, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

_He'll keep an eye on things. He may be as evil as they come, but in his own way, he's probably the most reliable of this bunch._

It was early evening. Sand was vaguely surprised—hadn't it just been late morning? How long had he been inside?

Casavir was sharpening his sword with long, even strokes of the whetstone, a methodical scraping that set Sand's teeth slightly on edge. He looked up at the elf's approach.

"Is—"

"Alive."

The paladin slumped, in guilt or relief or exhaustion, it was hard to say. The acrid edge of misery that always clung to him was strong enough to make Sand's eyes water.

The elf handed him the second mug. Casavir eyed it suspiciously.

"Oh, just drink it. If evil can triumph through tea, we're all doomed anyway."

The paladin took it. They stood in silence for a moment. In the increasing gloom, the shrine loomed like the shell of some enormous beetle.

_Wait for it, wait for it…_

"Sand?"

_And here it comes._

_Occasionally I get tired of being right._

"Did we do right?"

"She's alive, isn't she?"

Casavir shook his head slowly. "Yes, but…" He sheathed the sword. "To owe your life to evil. Such things leave a kind of taint that might follow her for many years."

"Possibly. And so what if it does?" Sand shook his head. "Better a live woman than a dead saint."

_Unless you're a paladin, of course, in which case you'd probably _prefer_ a dead saint. _

There was another awkward silence.

"I should have trusted you," said Casavir finally. "I'm sorry."

Sand shrugged. "Yes, you should have. I do occasionally know what I'm doing."

_We'll just avoid mentioning that you were pretty sure you'd made a horrible mistake a few hours ago…_

Casavir stared at the dirt.

After a moment, the paladin said "I will stay outside."

"That is probably for the best."

"If you have need of me—"

"I will call." The elf began to turn away.

"Sand."

_Oh, Mystra, what now? Haven't you worn your heart on your metal sleeve enough for one evening?_

"Ye-es?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

The paladin shifted his feet. "You know that I care for the captain."

"No," said Sand, annoyed, "I have been living under a _rock_ with my _ears _plugged. Everyone in a fifty mile radius of Crossroad Keep knows _that._ You and the ranger aren't exactly subtle."

Casavir flushed. "No. I suppose not. I am not good at this sort of thing."

"Really? I had hardly noticed."

The eyes that lifted to his held a kind of weary amusement. "We are not all as skilled at hiding our feelings as you are, wizard."

Sand felt his eyes narrow, and fought the expression back with difficulty. "I don't know what you're talking about, I'm sure."

_What the…? No. He doesn't know anything. Discretion. It's all about discretion. _

_Um, yeah. It occurs to me that you may have displayed a tiny bit more concern than one would expect from mere friendship. Apparently enough that the paladin noticed, anyway._

…_which of course means that Bishop will be absolutely convinced, and is probably going to be putting an arrow in your back the minute he gets a clear shot. _

_Back to sleeping in a globe of invulnerability again. Lovely. You can_not_ get the pillows fluffed right through those things._

"Ah," said Casavir noncommittally. "I see."

_The paladin is humoring me. Mystra help me. This may be a new personal low._

_Obviously it is time to beat a strategic retreat._

Sand scooped up the empty mugs. "I'm sure someone will be out with dinner. Or at least cookies."

He took a small, cruel pleasure in seeing Casavir wince as he went back inside.


	11. Voices & Shadows

_Chapter Eleven: In which our heroine wakes up, our hero has yet another unfortunate conversation, and is forced to rely, yet again, on the kindness of evil._

About a thousand years later, Serafin woke up.

Her ribcage felt as if ogres had been dancing on it, but her lungs were clear.

She'd been wandering in painful darkness for a minor eternity, lost without any sense of which way to go, or even if there was someplace she should be going. She had wanted, more than anything, to lie down and not move again, in hopes that the pain would go away and the fear would go away, and there would be nothing left but the dark.

But there was a voice, and it wouldn't let her stop moving.

It was not the sort of voice one usually followed. It was not loving or kind or heroic. It was…rather thin and nasal, actually, and it really had a grudge against her uncle Duncan.

"…and then I had to clean out all twenty barrels, and did he thank me? He most certainly did not!..."

It seemed to Serafin that she ought to recognize that voice, but for some reason it eluded her.

"…always the insults, viper this and snake that…"

Still, while she might have been able to ignore a normal voice, there was something about this one that cut through the dark like a buzzsaw. Ignoring it was not an option. She followed it instead, because she didn't know what else to do.

"…and why is it always snakes? Do I hiss? I do not. My elocution is exquisite. I do not slur, I do not stutter, and I most _certainly_ do not hiss…"

Eventually it started talking in Elvish. She still didn't know what it was saying…probably more about Duncan. What was the elven word for "degenerate barkeep" anyway?

The dark went on and on, and the voice went on and on. Serafin realized after awhile that there was no more pain, but she kept following the voice anyway, until she passed at last out of the darkness and into normal sleep.

She thought she was awake now, but it was hard to tell.

_It's awfully dark._

_Possibly if you opened your eyes, it wouldn't be._

She considered this novel suggestion for a few minutes, then pried one eyelid open.

_Oh. Huh. How 'bout that?_

She was in a dimly lit room, in bed. There was a fire to her right, and she was very warm…some kind of hearth, apparently. The room smelled like herbs and baking, and the walls were hung with faces—no, with masks. That was less creepy. Marginally, anyway.

_I suppose it's possible this is the afterlife…_

The afterlife probably would not have included straw poking into her from the rather roughly made pallet.

_I appear to be alive._

_I did _not_ think that would happen._

"Hey," she said, just to see if she could. "I'm alive."

Something stirred at her elbow. It was either a brown mop, or…"Sand?"

The elf lifted his head. He'd apparently fallen asleep at her bedside, which Serafin would have found touching, except that he looked like—like—

"Sand, you look like hammered _shit."_

"A flattering analogy, to be sure." His voice was a hoarse rasp. "Not without a certain accuracy, however."

His face was so drawn that he could have passed for undead, and while he'd cleaned the blood off his hands, his hair was still in stiffly dried spikes. The circles under his eyes would have done a raccoon proud.

She glanced down, and discovered that he had his fingers curled around her wrist, a gesture less tender than clinical, since she was pretty sure he was monitoring her pulse.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Better than you look. Where are we?"

"I suspect you are happier not knowing."

She exhaled. Her lungs felt oddly raw, almost as if she'd been running, but her breath didn't catch. "Probably, but you better tell me anyway."

"We're at a shrine to Mask."

"Whoa." She considered this for a moment, tilting her head back. "That would probably explain all these masks, huh?"

"I am pleased to see that your grasp of the obvious has survived unharmed. Before you ask, the cleric is a friend of Bishop's."

"Of course. So…Casavir's dead, then?"

"Merely wishing he was."

"Did they fix you up, too?"

"I was not wounded." He sat up, running a hand self-consciously through his hair, which only made things worse. "I believe most of this blood is yours."

"Oh. Well, you can keep it. What time is it?"

He got the vague, listening look that elves got when they were off communing with the stars or whatever it was they did. "It would appear to be about two hours after midnight."

"Have you been sitting there the whole time?"

"Once the healer was done, yes." He looked faintly embarrassed. "I had to be certain she would not ruin my handiwork, after all."

_Awww. He really does care, even if he'd rather eat rat poison than admit it._

Serafin found a smile somewhere. "Thought vigils were for paladins."

"He's outside the door." Sand jerked his chin toward the door, looking mildly disgusted. "He cannot bear to be inside. Evil makes him uncomfortable."

"Lotta evil, then?"

"In a peculiar form, yes. It bakes cookies. And it healed you."

"Ah." She considered this. Her memories of the last battle were patchy, but she had a pretty clear memory of Sand, sunk to the wrist in gore, that did not seem like a hallucination. "I seem to remember you….there was a…you had your hands…okay, what exactly did you do?"

"Oh, you know. The impossible." He shrugged.

"Yes, I gathered that. What specific impossibility?"

"Applying potions directly to damaged internal organs."

Serafin took a moment to get her head around this. It would take a mind as methodical and a stomach as strong as Sand's to even try such a thing, let alone succeed. "Good gods. Have you done that before?"

"No." He gazed up at the ceiling. "I happened to read a book on the theory recently."

She chuckled. It hurt, but it was a massive-bruises kind of hurt, not a ruptured-spleen kind of hurt. "Sand?"

"Mmm?"

"Next time Qara makes a snide remark about books, you have my permission to disintegrate her."

He smiled. His eyes were starting to close from sheer exhaustion.

"And…thanks."

The sheer desperate inadequacy of the word was almost funny.

He shrugged. His eyes were still closed, but the fingers around her wrist tightened.

She tried moved her hand, and was pleased to see that she could. She made use of this newfound ability to pat his arm.

"I heard your voice, you know. In the dark. I didn't know it was you, but I followed it anyway."

He opened his eyes again. They seemed to glow in the reflected firelight. "I was talking to you. I didn't know if you could hear me, but I thought…" He rubbed a hand over his face. "I don't know what I thought."

"Apparently that Duncan's a right bastard."

"Well, that, yes."

She took pity on him."Go to bed, Sand."

"I don't require much sleep."

"You require a lot of it right now. Go to bed. I'm not dying anymore."

He nodded slowly, and pushed himself to his feet. For once she had no trouble believing that he was four hundred years old.

He stood looking down at her, and shook his head. She could guess pretty well what he was thinking.

"Sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time…"

His lip curled. "You do realize that you are _not_ immortal?"

"What, really? Crap, that explains some things…" She propped herself up on an elbow, wincing as her ribs twinged, but she gave him a tired grin anyway.

Sand shook his head.

"_Im melant le_," he muttered. She didn't understand it, but since it had the same intonation as some of Bishop's favorite phrases, she could take a guess.

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Sand snorted. "Fine, I'm going. _Try_ not to die in my absence."

"I promise nothing."

He glanced around, and saw no one in the room. Mother Haggard and Ammon Jerro had retired hours ago, and presumably the ranger as well.

Sand leaned forward to press a kiss briefly to her forehead. "Idiot girl," he muttered against her skin.

Serafin was used to such endearments, and only chuckled. The fire cast a flickering, stoop-shouldered shadow across the wall as he left, and she craned her neck to watch him go.

p 

p 

p 

Sand closed the door behind him, heard it click, and sagged back against it in exhaustion, one hand over his eyes.

She was alive. She was alive, and she'd grinned at him, and he'd said…he'd told her…

_I can't believe I said that._

_Oh, well, at least she's got no idea what it meant._

He wondered if anyone else in the history of the world had said "I love you," and gotten "You kiss your mother with that mouth?" as a rejoinder.

_Typical. Entirely typical._

Anyway, it wasn't as if he _really_ loved her or anything. He just…felt better for having said it, that was all. If she died, he wouldn't have to feel guilty now.

_Perfectly reasonable, I'm sure._

He dropped his hand, suddenly smelling something familiar and unwelcome.

Bishop was standing about five feet away, watching him and smiling.

_Oh, sweet Mystra. I don't need this right now…_

"Now who would've thought?" The ranger padded closer. The room was dimly lit, and through the far doorway, Sand could glimpse beds. They looked very inviting.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm sure." Bishop was between him and the beds. Sand did not appreciate that at all.

"_Sure_ you don't." There was a feral light in the ranger's eyes. "You're such a cold fish…I would never have guessed. Hell, I kinda thought the paladin was more your type, if you know what I mean."

Sand decided not to dignify that with a response.

"You must know you've got no chance, a sniveling little worm like you. Must be why you never said anything."

_First I'm a snake, then I'm a fish, now I'm a worm. I seem to be sliding down the evolutionary ladder. Next week Khelgar will accuse me of being a gelatinous cube…_

"How long have you been carrying that torch, huh?"

_Great. If he thinks we're going to start putting on the Traveling Ranger, Paladin & Wizard Show, he's got a disintegrate coming…once I can think straight enough to cast. _

He dredged up the energy to speak. "Go and goad the paladin if you must. I have neither the strength nor the inclination for this."

Bishop did not back down.

_Oh, lovely, he's prepared a speech. I suppose I'll just have to sit through it._

"Now, the paladin's hot for her sense of honor, and I've always been fond of women who can kill their way through a room. But you…I've been trying to figure out what you want with our fine captain."

"At the moment, I want sleep above all else." He tried to pass, and Bishop blocked his path again.

Sand knew full well that he couldn't outmuscle the ranger, and he didn't have a spell to his name at the moment. He sighed and resigned himself.

"And you know, I think it must be power. That's the only thing that makes sense."

Sand sighed.

_He's not going to go away. He loves resistance. Might as well try a different tactic._

"Yes. You've guessed it. I'm passionately in love with our glorious leader because I secretly hope she can get me a better alchemy lab."

Bishop looked faintly nonplussed.

"I look at her and think of acids, bases, and glassware. It drives me to madness. Beakers haunt my dreams. I can practically taste the reagents. Now, may I please pass? I am exhausted beyond all reason."

"This isn't over, elf."

"If you wish to castigate me while I sleep, you are more than welcome to do so. I will attempt to snore at the appropriate moments."

He detoured around Bishop. The ranger narrowed his eyes, but did not try to stop him.

"But you _are_ in love with her."

_Why do people keep asking me that? There are armies of githyanki and undead and the gods know what else roaming the landscape, and all anybody worries about is the Captain's love life. _

_And more specifically, why do _rangers_ keep asking me that? Did their union send out a memo?_

"No more than you are, my good ranger."

Bishop snorted.

"Watch yourself, wizard."

"Around you? Always."

Sand passed through the doorway, and found a row of beds. A dark shape in one was Ammon Jerro. The warlock slept with his eyes open, which had been alarming the first time Sand saw it, but now merely made him wonder how the man's eyes didn't dry out overnight.

He glanced behind him, but Bishop had melted away into the shadows.

_Would Bishop try and kill me overnight?_

_Here? Maybe. The cleric will hardly stop him, and the paladin is outside. Serafin is in no shape to come to my rescue._

He had to sleep. If he didn't lie down soon, he was going to fall down. The catnap he'd caught at Serafin's bedside was hardly enough to sustain him.

He sighed.

_And once again, there's only one person left to trust…_

Sand reached over and shook Ammon Jerro's shoulder.

The warlock was silent for a long moment, and then a surprisingly powerful hand snapped up and caught the elf's wrist.

"Are we under attack?"

Sand pulled his hand away and slipped it into his sleeve. "No. However, I am concerned."

The warlock frowned, lifting his head. Burning eyes stabbed at Sand. "The cleric's not going to kill us all in our beds without showing us etchings of her grandchildren first."

"No. I am more concerned that Bishop will attempt to kill me in my sleep."

He waited for Ammon Jerro to ask why, but the warlock had either already figured it out, or more likely, didn't care.

"Nnngh. Fine." The warlock dropped his head back to the pillow and gestured with one hand.

Something elongated and shadowy coalesced from the darkness lurking in the corners of the room. Empty eyes stared at the warlock, and it bowed low before him, a tattered scarecrow of black on black on black.

_"…masssster…?"_

"Keep an eye on the wizard. Don't let anybody kill him. If anybody tries, wake me up."

_"…I obey, masssster…."_

Sand settled slowly onto his bed. The shadow drifted to the foot of the bed, folded its arms across its breast, and stood as patiently as a stone.

It was more than a little creepy, and yet, for the second time in one day, Sand found himself being grateful for the kindness of evil.

"Thank you," he said to Ammon Jerro.

"Mmm." The warlock pulled his cowl down, and apparently went back to sleep.

Another time, Sand might have found it difficult to sleep with the shadowy sentinel at the foot of his bed, and yet he was unconscious the moment his head touched the pillow.


	12. Batter & Underwear

Chapter Twelve: In which our heroine wakes up, elf problems are discussed, and normalcy is briefly restored.

Serafin woke up and found Mother Haggard looking down at her, which would have given anybody a bad start to begin with, and then the cleric grabbed her blanket and yanked it down, which only added insult to injury.

"Yrrrk!" Serafin clapped her hands over her breasts.

"Here now, lovey, don't fret yourself. I've seen it all before. Not gonna hurt you, either." She grinned, displaying crooked teeth. "Well, not without a good reason, anyway."

Serafin took in the dark holy symbol hanging from the woman's plump neck and said "You're the cleric."

_Fear my observational skills, world._

"Right you are, duck. Mother Haggard's the name, and Bishop tells me you're named Serafin. And now that that's out of the way—" she clucked her tongue and poked Serafin's ribs, which made the younger woman yelp, "—you'll be happy to know that you're healing up nicely. Up you go."

"Oh…oh, that's good…" said Serafin, sitting up obediently as Mother Haggard propped pillow up behind her.

"Let's see about getting some food into you, lovey."

Serafin watched as the woman bustled around the dim kitchen. The cleric reminded her of a bulldog—heavy, jowly face, powerful shoulders, and an expression that was currently cheerful, but which could probably tear your face off without breaking a sweat.

_Let's stick to being polite…_

"You healed me. Thank you."

"'Course, honey, could hardly let you drop dead on my doorstep, could I? Besides, any friend of Bishop's…"

Serafin smiled faintly. "I'm not sure if Bishop would describe me as a friend."

Mother Haggard shot her a wicked grin. "I'm sure he'd rather describe you as something else, lovey. Bishop doesn't bring just anybody this way, especially not with a paladin in tow."

Serafin dropped her head back. "Um. That was very…err…_kind_ of him."

_Probably not wise to insult Bishop just now…_

Mother Haggard's eyes glittered with amusement. "Now, now, duck, don't you twist your tongue on my account. I know _just_ what he's like. If you want my advice—and you're stuck in that bed, so you don't have much choice—I'd stick to that sweet little moon elf friend of yours and give Bishop a pass. Lovely boy, but crazier than a wet wolverine."

_Sweet little…Sand? She thinks _Sand_ is sweet?_

Serafin mentally re-filed Mother Haggard under "Dangerously Insane."

_She's right about Bishop, though, anyway…_

The cleric came over with a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread. She handed it over. Serafin discovered that she was ravenous, picked up the spoon and began applying herself.

Mother Haggard pulled up a chair to her bedside and settled, a tectonic motion like a mountain chain being formed. She watched Serafin eating, and clucked her tongue again. "Good, good. Looks like all the plumbing's hooked up right again." She tapped two fingers against her lips. "'Course, if soup starts squirting out all over your torso, be a dear and say something, will you?"

Serafin grinned around a mouthful of bread. "Will do."

"Mmm." The cleric reached out for a cup of tea. "Yes, give Bishop a miss."

"Thought you were a friend of his," said Serafin warily, between bites.

"Indeed I am, in very deed. But he never did handle love well, and Mother Haggard's too old to comfort sulky rangers with bruised hearts." She took a sip of tea. "Besides, you wouldn't know it to look at me, lovey, but I was once _quite_ a heartbreaker in my youth—"

Oddly enough, Serafin had no trouble believing this at all.

"—and I know trouble. That boy'd be a lot of fun, but he'll leave you high and dry. And the paladin'll follow you to the very end, but you'll be sick of him long before that."

_Truer words were never spoken… _The bread was excellent, fresh-baked, with a thick crust.

"Now that nice little elf…"

_Discretion. Remember discretion._

"We're just friends," said Serafin weakly.

The cleric snorted explosively. "Does he know that? Stayed at your bedside half the night, he did. Quite a tongue on him, but if he isn't half in love with you, Mother Haggard'll personally swear allegiance to Tyr and take up paladining her ownself."

It took a minute for this fascinating and horrifying image to play itself out inside Serafin's skull, while the cleric grinned at her.

_Where would they find the plate mail? You'd need to hammer out two breastplates and weld them together…_

"Nah, stick to him, that's my advice," Mother Haggard continued. "Unless he's got elf troubles, of course." She waggled her eyebrows at Serafin.

For a minute, all the Knight-Captain could think was that "elf troubles" sounded a lot like "woman troubles." She wondered vaguely if Sand ever got cramps.

_Nah, he can probably make a potion for it…I know he whipped one up for me that one month, and…wait a minute, _what?

"Elf troubles?"

"Oh, you know." The dark cleric pressed the back of one plump hand against her forehead and rolled her eyes back. "Oh, woe is me, I cannot love a mortal, for she will die of old age while I am out getting a ham sandwich, alas, woe is me." She dropped her hand and grinned. "_You _know. _Elf_ troubles."

Serafin stifled a snicker. "Oh, yes. No, he, uh…it hasn't come up."

The thought was a trifle depressing—did that mean that Sand had no intentions of sticking around that long? _Oh, probably not. Granted that he thinks we're going to die in the next few months anyway, it's not like we've been making plans about growing old together. _

_Hell, if we live to see a one-year anniversary, I'll be very, very surprised. Sand's just too practical to make plans when neither of you'll live to see them._

It was odd to be heartened by the thought of her impending death, but Serafin had gotten used to finding comfort in odd places.

Evil clerics, for example.

"Well, good. Had a lovely little pointy-eared lad pull that on me once, and I turned around and outlived _him._" Mother Haggard smiled broadly.

There was something about that smile…

"Did you _kill_ him, by chance?"

""Course, lovey, o'course." The dark cleric patted her arm reassuringly. "Fed him poison with dinner. Died in twitching agony, the poor dear. Now, if you're done with your soup…" She took the empty bowl away.

_I'm absolutely sure she did that deliberately. _Serafin squelched the jangle of her nerves. _It'd be stupid to heal me and then turn around and poison me. She's just trying to rattle me for fun._

_It's working._

_Be polite. Be very, very polite._

"Thank you again for healing me," she said.

Mother Haggard grinned over her shoulder. "Well, lovey, just keep it in mind when you're up in that big stone keep of yours. Mayhap someday Mother Haggard'll come looking for a favor, eh?"

_I knew it._

"I always pay my debts," said Serafin, swallowing hard. _Kana's going to have my ears._

The cleric grinned. "Now, now, duck, don't be lookin' like that. If I want the noble and dutiful treatment, I'll take some cookies out to that cute little paladin of yours. Mayhap Mother Haggard'll never come to collect. P'raps you'll die first, or I will. Don't fret yourself over what may never be."

"Good advice," rumbled Ammon Jerro from the doorway. He nodded to Mother Haggard. "We have other concerns, and we should be leaving soon."

"Oh, hello, Ammon. I'm fine, thank you for asking."

He grunted, strode over, and stood looking down at her. The shadows under his hood and around his hawk-like nose were very deep. "Hmmm."

"And good morning to you, too, sunshine."

The warlock leaned down, grabbed the blanket, and yanked it back. Serafin yelped and clapped her arms over her breasts again.

_"Ammon!"_

"Don't flatter yourself," the warlock said, annoyed. "Unlike some people, I _know_ you're too young for me."

_I wonder what he means by that…no, on second thought, I'm pretty sure I don't want to know what he means by that._

_So much for discretion. What did Sand _do_ while I was out, propose to my carcass?_

Ammon glared down at her ribcage as if it had personally offended him, and poked her just under the sternum. She yelped.

"Hmm. You'll live."

Serafin craned her neck and peered down her body. The immense scar had faded under the last of the cleric's treatments, and left only a painfully red patch, spread out across the bouquet of blue and purple bruises. "How 'bout that…"

The warlock leaned forward, studying the red mark as if there was something written on it. "I don't sense a demonic taint, either. Good. That would have been inconvenient."

"Demonic taint?"

Ammon straightened up, showing his teeth. "Demon-inflicted wounds sometimes get a mind of their own. Fortunately, you seem to have avoided that."

"Mind of their own? I could have gotten possessed?!"

Ammon shrugged. "No need for histrionics. Possession is a minor matter, and easily dealt with."

"Oh. Well, that's good…"

"Nor were there any eggs, which is often problematic…"

"Eg—oh, now you're just trying to freak me out. Very funny." Serafin hauled the blanket up to her chin, while Mother Haggard cackled.

Whatever he might have said to that was lost as Sand backed into the room. "My dear warlock—" the elf said, "—your creature is _following_ me."

"So it is," said Ammon, sitting down at the table with a cup of tea.

A tall black shadow drifted into the room behind the moon elf, vague arms folded across an even vaguer chest.

Sand shot him a worried look. "Shouldn't it have gone back to the netherworld by now?"

"Perhaps it likes you." The warlock smiled under his hood.

"An interdimensional horror of impeccable taste, to be sure. However, it is still following me." Sand retreated across the room. The shadow began drifting around the table after him.

"Mm." Ammon casually stretched out a hand and clicked his tongue, like a man calling a dog. The shadow veered off from Sand and crept humbly to the warlock's chair.

Sand twitched his robes straight and went to Serafin's bedside. He reached down, grabbed the blanket, and hauled it back.

"Oh, for god's sake, why do I even _have_ a blanket?" Serafin folded her arms across her chest. "Might as well get Bishop and Casavir in here too, since everybody else's been ogling me today..."

"We are merely concerned for your safety, dear girl," said Sand, eyeing the remains of her injury. "Without our glorious leader, what choice would we have but to wander aimlessly about the countryside, bereft of purpose?" He dropped the blanket. "Mind you, we seem to do a great deal of that _anyway…"_

Serafin would have come up with something cutting to say about that, but was distracted by the sight of Ammon Jerro, who had put one hand inside the shadow's head. He propped a tattooed cheek on his fist, an expression of bored concentration on his face, while the shadow writhed silently under his fingers.

After a moment, the warlock dropped his hand, and the shadow hunched down, and began creeping across the floor towards Sand. The elf backed up nervously, ran into Serafin's pallet, and nearly sat on her.

"It likes moon elves," said Ammon, nodding to Sand.

"To eat?" Sand's voice was a bit higher pitched than usual.

Ammon shrugged. "Maybe. It might have absorbed one once, or one might have been kind to it—or it might have actually been one at some point. It's difficult to tell with shadows. They're not very bright." He watched as the entity slunk across the floor. "Regardless, it can't hurt you unless I order it to." His teeth flashed briefly.

"Comforting, I'm sure..." Sand tried to back up again. Mother Haggard chortled.

While Serafin enjoyed sharing a bed with Sand, she would prefer not to do it with Who's Who in Modern Evil watching. She sat up, wrapping the blanket around her, and watch Sand retreat to the marginal safety of the mattress.

"Speaking of wandering aimlessly through the wilderness…" Serafin rubbed the back of her neck. "Where's the gith?"

"Headed back to the Keep." Ammon nodded to her. "Which means that we should leave as soon as possible."

Mother Haggard, without saying a word, leaned back from whatever she was mixing and handed Ammon a large wooden spoon with bits of batter adhering to it. The warlock took the spoon, nodded to the cleric gravely, and licked it.

It spoke volumes about the man's inherent dignity that he could lick cookie dough off a spoon while still looking diabolical and capable of unspeakable evil. Serafin felt a pang of envy.

_Man, I could be in full regalia with a sword and an army behind me, and I'd _still _get backtalk._

"Indeed." Sand peered over the edge of the bed, and then jerked back as the shadow extended a bit of darkness toward him. "We should definitely be leaving, before the rest of your dear friends come rampaging through the wilderness to try and locate you." He peered over the bed again, then retreated. The shadow peered hopefully over the edge of the bed, then sank back down.

Ammon watched this bizarre game of peek-a-boo with an expression of resigned contempt, in no way lessened by his continued attention to the cookie dough. "There is also the matter of the crystal drago," he said. "Bishop mentioned that he has found you a path."

Sand's head jerked up at the word _dragon_, not unlike a dog hearing the dreaded word _bath. _"Well, perhaps we _should_ wait another day or two," said the elf. "Until you're fully recovered. We would hate to have you relapse on the trail."

Serafin rolled her eyes. She was surprised to find that she felt pretty good. Her chest was still bruised, but she'd been hurt worse walking to the privies in the middle of the night. For someone who'd recently been spitted on a claw the size of a table leg, she felt remarkably good. Mother Haggard might be a dark cleric, but she obviously knew her business.

_If I were Casavir, I'd probably be worried about the moral ramifications of owing my life to a dark cleric. Bein' me, I'm just gonna be glad she was around._

Serafin swathed herself in the blanket. "I feel okay. Mother Haggard?"

"Yes, yes, get on with you, duck." The cleric made a shooing gesture. "You're safe enough to travel." She put her hands on her hips. "But the next time you think about getting in a fight with something ten times your size, lovey—"

Serafin bowed her head, waiting for another lecture.

"—you make damn sure you get him in the back first. None of this fair fight foolishness." A plump finger waggled at her, flinging bits of batter around the room. "Never ends well, now does it?"

"Yes, Mother Haggard," said Serafin meekly.

"And don't you be forgetting what we talked about, mind."

"No, Mother Haggard."

She scooped up her pack from the end of the bed and scooted through the door to change.

Her shirt was pretty much a total loss as one might expect, and there was a great deal of blood on her pants. Still, you didn't get to be a Knight-Captain without learning to live with blood stains.

At least she had clean underwear. Daeghun had never particularly harped on the importance of clean underwear—possibly you were more in touch with nature if there were mushrooms growing on your briefs or something—but Retta Starling had always gone on about it, given half a chance. She'd be proud.

Serafin wiggled into it, then the pants. A wad at the bottom of her pack revealed itself to be a badly travel-stained shirt.

"Oh, well, any port in a storm…"

Bishop snickered behind her.

Serafin did not yelp, did not turn around, because that's what he would have wanted. Instead she yanked the shirt over her head, settled the wrinkled folds around her hips, and only then turned around.

"You're looking particularly lovely, Captain," he said.

She made an obscene gesture, which apparently pleased him to no end.

"Such gratitude." He shook his head in mock-despair.

_He's got a point. He did get you to his friend._

Serafin sighed. "You're right." She met his eyes with all the sincerity she could muster. "Thank you, Bishop. Your cleric friend saved my life. I won't forget that."

The ranger looked briefly startled, then hid it behind a wolfish grin. "Oh? Just how grateful are you?" He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

Bishop could suggest things with his eyebrows that would otherwise require a fairly thick book with numerous illustrations.

"Not _that_ grateful." She threw the bloody shirt at him.

He ducked away from it. "I bet if it was the paladin, you'd be that grateful," he muttered.

"The paladin wouldn't ask."

"His loss."

_And so, normalcy is again restored…_

Serafin shoved her feet into her boots. _Time to get everybody together, and go see a dragon about a sword._


End file.
